Multiple Southeast Asian Countries Crack Down on Smuggling of Foreign Waste

Several Southeast Asian countries, including Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia, are continuing to tighten controls on the import of foreign waste and strengthen related bans. Sihanoukville Port in Cambodia recently seized 83 containers of smuggled plastic waste originating from the United States and Canada; Malaysia has decided to return a total of 450 metric tons of illegally imported waste to its countries of origin, including Canada, Japan, and the United States. For a long time, some developed countries have been exporting plastic and electronic waste, which is often stored in open-air piles and dismantled using rudimentary methods in developing countries, causing persistent composite heavy metal pollution in soil, groundwater, and coastal waters.