Despite highly publicised cases of returning illegal waste shipments last year, foreign scrap continues to flood Philippines shores according to a new report by environmental watchdog Greenpeace and two independent non-profits. The findings indicate that local laws are not enough to protect the Philippines from foreign waste dumping. Regulatory loopholes also persist in Thailand and Malaysia, two of Southeast Asia’s top plastic waste importing countries. Although hazardous waste is prohibited from entering the Philippines, trash marked as “for recycling” is legal, opening up a loophole that may permit the entry of illegal waste, said Greenpeace. The top exporters of plastic waste to Southeast Asia in 2018 were the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The Basel Convention, working toward a ban of all plastic and electronic waste imports to the Southeast Asian region, was amended last year to prohibit the importation of all waste. Within the region, only Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia have ratified the amendment.

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