British media said that Thailand will ban the import of plastic waste from 2021, which means that the UK must find other places to recycle thousands of tons of plastic waste that is exported to Thailand every month.
According to the British "Daily Telegraph" website reported on October 15, just after China announced in January this year that it would stop importing almost all plastic waste, the dependence of plastic waste exporting countries such as Britain, Japan and the United States on Thailand increased.
According to reports, Thailand is now working with neighboring countries such as Vietnam and Malaysia to crack down on import and processing licenses and close the door to plastic waste.
The ban was first announced in June. According to the Financial Times, Thai Deputy Minister of Industry Banzon Sucreta said on the 14th that the final agreement will be enacted within two years.
According to the report, in December 2017, British Minister of the Environment Michael Goff said that the UK must 'stop shipping our waste overseas'. Greenpeace statistics show that work in this area is currently making progress. The total amount of plastic waste dropped from 198557 tons in the first four months of 2017 to 165104 tons in the same period of this year.
However, Goff acknowledged that in the short term the UK will have to continue to deliver waste to overseas, and Thailand is the main destination. According to Greenpeace, the amount of plastic waste transported to Thailand from Thailand increased from 123 tons in January-April 2017. 6810 tons in the same period of this year.
According to the report, before taking this action in Thailand, the Thai people strongly protested that the waste recycling plants and importers violated regulations to import contaminated plastics into the country for processing.
Greenpeace's marine activist Elena Polissano told the Daily Telegraph: 'More and more countries are fed up, and don't want to be treated as our plastic waste dump. This is becoming A global drumming flower game, the last country got all the plastic packaging. '
She said: 'The UK should stop transporting plastic waste thousands of miles away. It should be done at home by reducing the production of plastic waste.'