Waste Colonialism Produces Global Environmental Concerns

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

By Siona Ahuja ’24 

Staff Writer 

In August 2006, a company hired by the commodity trading giant, Trafigura, offloaded large amounts of toxic waste into Abidjan, the economic center of the Ivory Coast, located on the south coast of West Africa. The vessel, the contents of which were rejected by many countries before being dumped on the Ivory Coast, was carrying 500 tons of fuel, caustic soda and hydrogen sulfide. As a result, 17 people died and thousands of locals in Abidjan contracted severe health problems with reported symptoms of burning skin and difficulty breathing. To this day, people report various skin and eye problems that they believe are related to the 2006 dumping incident. 

This incident is not an isolated one. Developed nations have been dumping their waste into the landfills of developing countries for decades, and have continued to do so even after economically developed countries tightened legislation surrounding waste disposal methods in the 1980s. This exploitative practice has been termed “waste colonialism.”

The primary reason why developed nations export their waste lies in the development process itself. Countries in the Global North produce hazardous substances through industrialization. Environmental justice scholars opine that reckless consumption patterns and the “rapid obsolescence of products” has led to overconsumption and large amounts of waste in the Global North while the landfills of the Global South end up paying the price, according to an article in the journal International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics. 

The import countries, many of them in Africa or the Asia-Pacific region, lack the infrastructure required for proper waste management and recycling. Such mechanisms are scant and concentrated only in urban areas, which means that large rural parts of these countries dispose of imported garbage into landfills or incinerators. Organic pollutants poison areas surrounding landfills, producing fatal hazards for local wildlife and ecosystems. The toxic waste also permeates the soil, which can contaminate groundwater and crops that humans ingest, resulting in detrimental effects like cancers, diabetes, bone disease, kidney damage and liver damage. Incinerating waste releases harmful chemicals such as lead and mercury into the air. Not only does inhaling these fumes cause severe respiratory problems, but these elements are potentially carcinogenic. More than 2 billion tonnes of non-hazardous waste is generated globally, and this number is projected to increase by 19 percent in the Global North and 40 percent in the Global South by 2050. 

To combat this exploitation, the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, known as the Basel Convention, was set up by the United Nations in 1989. The Basel Convention seeks to establish secure standards for the transnational movement of hazardous waste. In 1995, the signatories adopted an amendment called the Basel Ban which prohibits the transfer of hazardous waste materials from developed to developing countries. The United States, one of the worst global offenders of waste production, has not yet ratified the Basel Convention so it is not legally binding.  

Even for member-states who have ratified it, there are significant legal loopholes that pose challenges to its goals. There is ambiguity in defining non-hazardous and hazardous waste along with what constitutes waste and non-waste. This creates a plethora of opportunities for member-states to escape the stringent controls of the Basel Convention. 

Until two years ago, China imported almost half of the world’s plastic waste. This ended in January 2018 when the country ceased all imports of scrap plastics and other wastes  according to its “National Sword” policy, overflowing the warehouses in the U.S., Canada and Australia and leading to an estimated displacement of 111 million metric tons of plastic by 2030. Instead of improving systems and managing their wastes internally, developed nations redirected their exports to Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, to name a few. 

Managing imported waste also adds to the pile of domestic concerns developing nations face which include overpopulation, inconsistent economic growth and present pollution problems. This creates a vicious cycle of developed nations treating developing nations as their dumping grounds and then chiding them for mismanaging their garbage. This colonial mindset was exemplified when the American-based environmental nongovernmental organization Ocean Conservancy released a report in 2015 regarding solutions to marine plastic pollution. One of the core suggestions was for Southeast Asian countries to collaborate with foreign-funded companies to build incinerators and burn their plastic waste. This recommendation was vehemently opposed by the Philippines branch of the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, which stated the effects of incinerating waste on the environment and health, especially in countries like China that are combating severe pollution. 

No amount of policy changes and international assistance is likely to make a difference if the Global North refuses to make a radical reduction in the production and usage of materials. “Disposable plastics are simply not possible without colonizer access to land. The end of colonialism will result in the end of plastic disposability,” wrote Dr. Max Liboiron, an assistant professor of geography at Memorial University, in an op-ed for Teen Vogue. 

Shining a Light on the Plastic Industry

By Abby Wester ’22

Staff Writer

Plastic is both a central part of our society and a suffocating pollutant to the earth. Almost anything we buy comes wrapped in plastic, we bag our food in plastic and we wear variations of plastic. Not only does plastic end up littering our oceans and neighborhoods, but over 99 percent of it is made from chemicals derived from harmful fossil fuels. By 2015, over 8.3 billion tons of plastic had been produced, roughly equivalent to the weight of one billion elephants or 80 million blue whales. While this commodity has widespread use, there is little public knowledge about where our plastic goes when we toss it. 

We have all been taught the environmentalist slogan “reduce, reuse, recycle.” This slogan is often accompanied by the calming implication that by throwing your plastic water bottle in a recycling bin, you are helping save Mother Earth. However, in 2014, at the peak of annual recycling in the U.S., only 9.5 percent of plastic was actually recycled. Recent investigations by NPR and the PBS series “Frontline” reported that America’s largest oil and gas companies have known all along that recycling plastic would never be a viable alternative to dumping it in landfills. NPR and “Frontline” detailed that, in a 1974 speech, an unnamed industry insider wrote, “There is serious doubt that [recycling plastic] can ever be made viable on an economic basis.” 

While big oil and gas executives learned of the improbability of recycling on a large scale, commercials still aired across the country that, according to NPR, carried the message of “Plastic is special, and the consumer should recycle it.” These commercials were paid for by the same oil and gas companies that knew the industry was doomed to fail, such as Exxon, Chevron, Dow and DuPont. 

For a while, the U.S. was able to hide its growing plastic problem and ineffective recycling programs by dumping plastic waste in other countries, primarily China. But in 2017, China announced a national policy called National Sword to halt the import of recyclable waste from other countries. The U.S. was then forced to reckon with its own plastic addiction. According to The Intercept, after the implementation of National Sword, the U.S. started burning “six times the amount of plastic it’s recycling,” which, in turn, emits toxic chemicals into the atmosphere, including black carbon, which contributes to climate change.  

Other countries, such as Kenya, have implemented groundbreaking plastic bans, looking to limit the polluter. However, the U.S. oil and gas companies have tried to sully these efforts as well. According to a New York Times report, U.S. fossil fuel companies are attempting to lobby Kenya to reverse its plastic ban and continue importing foreign plastic waste. The battle is now between environmentalists in Kenya, the U.S. and abroad and the fossil fuel lobbyists who are backed by the hundred billion dollar industry.

While it is important to limit personal plastic use and continue to recycle plastics when possible, the issue of plastics extends beyond that. The towering oil and gas industry has held environmentalism hostage for decades with the goal of producing plastic, profits and waste.

Weekly Climate News

September 24, 2020

• China recently announced a plan to achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, a significant step forward for global climate action. 

• The U.K. is currently developing plans on climate action before U.N. climate talks to be held in Glasgow during the first two weeks of November, but has been challenged by a resurgence of COVID-19 cases. 

• Forest clearance in Indonesia has spiked during the global pandemic as travel restrictions have stopped environmental law enforcement. 

• Arctic sea ice reaches second-lowest ice coverage ever recorded, higher only than measurements from 2012. 

• 1 percent of the world is currently living in hot zones and by 2070, that could increase to 19 percent. Read this article about what this means for the population through an exploration of climate migration.  

• Some U.S. cities are planning “green recoveries” after COVID-19. Read about it here. 

• A newly released book on climate titled “All We can Save” highlights women climate leaders and offers solutions and encouragement. 

• A new data tool by NASA provides near real-time monitoring of forest fires and could  completely change the maintenance of blazes, particularly in the Amazon. 

• BP and other European oil companies have invested billions in the renewable energy sector, while many U.S. companies like Exxon and Chevron commit to fossil fuels. Read this article on why these companies have chosen divergent stances on climate change.