Exporting waste - Thailand Is Tired of Recycling Your Trash

If you believe in free trade you might think that it seems reasonable to have developed economies exporting their waste to developing economies, notably in South East Asia.

However, for others, so-called Waste Colonialism, notably in Thailand has simply served to create significant negative externalities in those places that this waste is dumped. Remarkably, in 2021, Thailand received 158m tonnes of 'exported' plastic waste, and if you look more closely at the so-called recycling that occurs, you'll find that there's little genuine recycling going on.