International rules are meant to restrict plastic waste exports. But an opaque global supply chain and haphazard regulatory system is easy to game by companies wanting to get rid of plastic that cannot be recycled, and offload it on countries thousands of miles away.

Until 2018, most of the world’s plastic waste was sent to China. Then Beijing banned plastic waste imports and massive flows were diverted to Southeast Asia. After public protests, some of the region’s biggest importers are now closing their doors, with Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam all moving to gradually block plastic waste imports.

But Thailand’s ban will have a major loophole – it will not restrict the large flows of plastic waste being sent to the country for transit to Myanmar.

People in Myanmar have little ability to protest. Since the 2021 coup all public dissent has been quashed. Established environmentalists have been forced into silence. And corruption is running rampant – it’s easier than ever to bring foreign trash into the country over the porous border with Thailand.

METHODS

We analysed international and national trade data from Thailand, Myanmar and exporting countries to document both the scale of the trade, and systemic inconsistencies in how it is monitored and measured. Major data discrepancies and indications of misreporting showed how opaque the plastic waste trade is, making oversight almost impossible.

In Myanmar, reporters collected samples of foreign plastic dumped in a neighbourhood of Yangon and spoke to local residents about the damage it is causing. Journalists in Thailand, Myanmar and exporting countries interviewed dozens of people involved in the supply chain bringing plastics into Myanmar, from logistics companies to border smugglers, recycling factories and waste collectors. We spoke to industry associations and obtained lists of importers and exporters by digging through open source records.

We identified international exporters in the US and Canada through customs records databases and analysed how they exploit transit countries to under-report the plastic they are sending to Myanmar based on bills of lading and shipping data.

STORYLINES

A working class township in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, is littered with plastic wrappers from Canada, Poland and the UK. Shwepyithar, which translates as the “Golden and Pleasant City”, is today anything but, with almost every block polluted by heaps of plastic waste and other trash.

Residents told Frontier Myanmar the plastic is dangerous – it catches fire, releasing hazardous fumes, and clogs sewers and streams, making monsoon flooding much worse. But since the 2021 coup in Myanmar, they are too afraid of the military-run government to complain.

“In normal times, under a civilian government, this kind of problem would be easy to solve. But now, we’re in a difficult situation if we complain about anything,” said one resident. “No one dares to speak out, so I have to suffer this until I can move…. At my age, I can no longer bear being beaten or tortured. I only have my hopes. My mind isn’t strong like when I was young.”

Myanmar has banned the import of this kind of plastic waste. But waste traders described a convenient loophole – foreign plastic is shipped to Thailand then transported over the porous land border with Myanmar. Officials told Prachatai that this route will not be restricted by Thailand’s upcoming plastic waste ban.

Most of the foreign brands found dumped in Shwepyithar said they had no idea how their products ended up there. But a large amount of plastic packaging came from the warehouse of the UK branch of German-owned supermarket chain Lidl, suggesting it was disposed of directly by the company rather than customers. Lidl told The Independent they were “disappointed” and would investigate.

New global rules introduced in 2021 were meant to prevent the export of plastic waste to countries where it could not be recycled. But in practice, there are workarounds. Canada has continued to export plastic waste to Myanmar since then, and some brands only found in Canada were dumped in Shwepyithar. Yet the Environment Department told The Canadian Press they had never issued an export permit for plastic waste to Myanmar.

The EU is currently considering banning all plastic waste exports as part of broader reforms of waste legislation. EU lawmakers told Politico a total ban was the only way to prevent plastic waste ending up in the world’s most vulnerable countries.

Some campaigners want the same for the UN Global Plastics Treaty which is currently being negotiated and should be finalised by the end of 2024. “There is no making this better; there is no responsible plastic waste export,” said US plastic waste expert Jan Dell.

Reporting for this investigation was supported by the Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) fund.

The post The West’s Next Plastics Dump appeared first on Lighthouse Reports.

Bilge dumping is the name given to the release of untreated oily waste-water produced by vessels onto the sea. As well as oil it contains hazardous metals and chemicals – a potential environmental crime.

The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) has spent millions of euros creating an elaborate system, CleanSeaNet, that aims to monitor and prevent bilge dumping at sea using radar technology. But despite the EU taxpayer money invested into the system, their detailed reports have not been made public.

We set out to know what was happening in partnership with the environmental watchdog Skytruth. We detected hundreds of potential bilge dumps in European waters since mid-2020.

METHODS

Using satellite imagery and machine learning provided by the environmental watchdog SkyTruth, we found hundreds of potentially illegal oil dumps by shipping vessels and oil tankers in European waters since 2020.

Although control over bilge dumping has increased significantly over the last decade, sources we spoke to – including environmentalists, port officials and members of shipping crews – admit that bilge dumping remains a reality in European waters.

We spoke to six whistleblowers who confirmed the structural nature of the phenomenon and gave us an insight into how they circumvent the system: using specific pumps, falsifying oil logbooks, or discharging at night when radar technology can detect it, but not easily verify the dump.

A culture of fear has discouraged people from speaking out: one person we spoke to, had been detained onboard his vessel for over 10 days when he refused to discharge oily water. Another source told us they had been fired three months into their contract for speaking out about illegal bilge dumping.

The European Maritime Agency has spent millions creating a CleanSeaNet to monitor and prevent bilge dumping at sea using AI and radar technology. The system is smart, but toothless as it relies on member states for enforcement. FOIA requests showed how response rates vary widely between EU member states, but are generally low. Data from 2019 demonstrated that only 1.5% of all potential spills are verified by member states within a critical three-hour time span.

The system is currently under review after an EU commission assessment found it “not optimally used or coordinated.”

STORYLINES

After working hours, inside small cabin rooms and with limited internet access, whistleblowers spoke of being intimidated by their employers. One seafarer told us he was threatened the moment he set foot on the ship he worked on, almost two years ago: “He (the chief engineer) immediately told me: this is how we do it, because there is too much water, we cannot do anything. Be quiet, do not speak out, if you speak then it is very much trouble for you.” The seafarer’s contract was terminated immediately after confronting the engineer about discharging oily waste-water.

Despite being a punishable crime in Europe, accountability for bilge dumping remains scarce. Slow response times by national authorities and limited public data have allowed impunity for offenders. Even if member states identify bilge dumps, they are not required to disclose what action is taken. Experts told us enforcement of fines are sporadic, and often are not high enough. “Even if an oil sample is taken after the fact and they find out which ship the oil came from, the likelihood of the polluters being fined a large amount is minimal,” said Christian Bussau, a marine biologist with Greenpeace. “There is still a certain incentive, for cost reasons, to illegally dump oil at sea.”

Bilge dumps don’t garner the same visibility as large oil spills. They are less visible, and smaller in scale, but the frequency at which they are happening should be cause of concern. One ecotoxicologist at the Swedish Environmental Research Institute told us maritime oil pollution has direct toxic effects on small marine organisms.

Inside the maritime industry and amongst port officials, bilge dumping remains an open secret. One high-ranking officer inside Barcelona’s port – speaking on condition of anonymity – told us it was common practice for bilge dumping to happen in border areas in an attempt to evade fines. In addition, the number of inspectors throughout Spain has been in steep decline in recent years. One spokesperson for Spain’s national maritime authority acknowledged they were not able to verify every alert sent by EMSA.

Whether it is a lack of resources by relevant national authorities, or flaws in EMSA’s accountability system, bilge dumping remains an uncomfortable and toxic reality in our oceans. “This is a problem that’s been invisible to the public,” said the president of Skytruth, John Amos.

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The post Europe’s Black Seas appeared first on Lighthouse Reports.

Turkey has now emerged as the preferred destination with Antwerp as the main exit point. This investigation followed how neatly collected plastic waste from Europe ends up in environmentally disastrous fires at illegal dumpsites in Turkey, violating international trade rules in the port of Antwerp and contributing to serious pollution of the Mediterranean by Turkey.

METHODS

This investigation arose from the Lighthouse Sessions training course, where we workshopped the impact of China’s decision to bar plastic waste imports from the EU.

The goal was to understand how plastics — both consumer or industrial — finally end up in Turkey. Who profits and where is the line between  the legitimate system and malpractice? To get there we used open source techniques including scraping websites where the auctioning of waste takes place. We tracked ships and containers, to find main export routes and destinations.

We spoke to the people involved in every step in the complex supply chain: the multinational waste processing companies; the traders; the transporters; the authorities involved and the family businesses in Turkey. With journalists based in Turkey we collected country-specific evidence at dumpsites, in order to reverse engineer the supply chain.

STORYLINES

Zooming in on the port of Antwerp, the main hub for the international trade in plastic waste reveals that heavily contaminated plastic waste from the Netherlands and the rest of Europe can be illegally exported to countries where it ends up dumped, not recycled. Waste traders have found ways to tamper with transport documents, unnoticed in the understaffed and -equipped Belgian port and illegally ship plastic to cheap final processors. Once exported, oversight by European authorities and companies on what happens to the plastic waste of European citizens turns out to be shockingly low.

Europe’s plastic waste litters the streets of Adana, a metropolis in southern Turkey, 30 kilometers from the Mediterranean. On a vacant lot, surrounded by sheds and shady car dealers, between broken tiles and concrete remnants, plastic waste abounds.

We find a Dutch Sauna Gift Voucher, “the most relaxing gift.” The green wrapper of six Heineken cans winds between pieces of wood and the frayed ends of a debris bag. With a note from the manufacturer: “95% is already recycled.”

A few meters away, on a crumpled plasticized price card, red numbers from Bakkerij Voordijk in the Dutch village Oud-Beijerland, calls out to passers-by: only 0.80 euros for fresh oliebollen, a Dutch delicacy.

There is much more Dutch plastic in the vicinity of Adana, too much to have been thrown out of a rental car by Dutch tourists. How does Dutch plastic waste end up 4,000 kilometers from home? At a rubbish tip, at illegal landfills or just in the Turkish countryside?

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The post Recycling Lies appeared first on Lighthouse Reports.