Up until 12 months ago, China used to import most of our excess plastic waste. Then came the decision to stop this and now the UK has found other countries to take the waste. This however is causing problems as these countries are now threatening to stop the plastic being imported too.

Our main plastic importers are Malaysia and Turkey but the likelihood of a long-term agreement with countries like this is uncertain. Countries are struggling to process the waste from the richer nations and are starting to take less. The fact that we can't process our own waste is an issue and there are no plans from the government to invest in more plastic processing plants in the future. This is a long-term problem and is set to get worse as other countries phase out the plastic trade from the UK. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/sci...