Much of the waste was sent to Turkey, followed by Malaysia, with Indonesia also a regular destination. Investigations have repeatedly linked the plastic recycling industry in these countries to environmental damage, illegal dumping and burning, and labour abuses.

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[โ€“] 2 points 3 months ago (1 child)

this source ranks the us fairly low. i'd even say suspiciously low, but the numbers for germany seem correct.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 3 months ago (1 child)

    So Germany is among the highest export per capita. Thanks for providing a source. The numbers seem off though, 10t per person would be insane in a single year^^ maybe the scale is supposed to be kg not tonnes?

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

    well that graph is total plastic exports, not waste specifically. i should probably have checked that before linking it. this one is probably more relevant; it shows generated plastic waste, but not exports. however if we take the 810kt from the op article at face value and put that against the 0.48kg/person/day number given to germany in this graph (ร— 80.83M people ร— 365 days โ‰ˆ 14.2 million tons), we get 810 / 14 200 โ‰ˆ 6% of their generated plastic waste being exported. i'd honestly say that's a pretty impressive number, even though it also seems to point to the average german generating more like a ton of plastic waste a year. as someone partially responsible for a multi-tenant building's maintenance it's not an unbelievable figure by any means, but it is a lot.

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