For years, Germany has been celebrated as a world leader in waste management and recycling, with mandatory waste sorting policies, deposit refund schemes, the Green Dot scheme, and the ‘Energiewende’ roadmap. These measures, while important, have covered up a darker story of environmental injustice. Let’s start by asking: where does this segregated and sorted waste, especially plastic, end up?
The short answer: halfway across the world!
Till 2018, Germany's waste, along with that of other EU countries and the US, was shipped to China – the recycling hub of the world. In 2019, when China implemented a ban on waste imports, Germany diverted its waste to Malaysia, Turkiye, the Netherlands, Indonesia, and Poland.
Between January and June 2025, Germany shipped 279,000 tonnes of plastic waste, roughly equivalent to 1,395 fully loaded ICE high-speed trains, or nearly 3 times the weight of the Cologne Cathedral.
Over the past few years, Germany’s plastic exports to the Netherlands, Turkey, and Poland have decreased yet, its exports to Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam have increased – indicating that waste trade hasn’t slowed down but merely shifted.
So Why Does Germany Ship Its Plastic Waste Abroad?
Despite Germany’s robust recycling system, it cannot handle all the different types of plastic that are incinerated, or end up in landfills or yellow bins. Since 2000, under EU Directives, Germany has closed many of its landfills, and the waste has been shipped to Asian countries, like Malaysia, Indonesia, and India. Yet it’s ironic that low-income recipient countries are expected to not only have the infrastructure and capacity to deal with this exported waste, but also to manage their own domestic waste.
What’s worse is that these waste shipments are disguised as resources or economic opportunities with terms like ‘waste to wealth’, masking the exploitation of cheaper labour in destination countries. As these countries also have weaker policy frameworks and environmental standards, high-income countries often peddle waste recycling or incineration technologies, branded as ‘waste-to-energy’, ‘energy recovery’, or ‘circular economy’ schemes.
When these technologies prove inadequate or inefficient in dealing with vast quantities of waste, most of it ends up in landfills to rot or burn, or in water bodies such as lakes and rivers, from where contaminants flow into the sea. Western research often identifies Asian countries as the primary contributors to marine litter, without acknowledging the origin of the waste.
Apart from the blame, Asian countries also bear the brunt of the health impacts. In the case of plastics, the chemical additives leach out into the soil, the air, and our water systems. As more research emerges, we’re understanding the linkages between plastics, chemical additives, and health issues such as reproductive disruptions, cardiovascular disease, hormone disorders, organ damage, various types of cancer, toxic metal poisoning, and growth disorders in children [Access our Health & Toxics Toolkit].
Ultimately, those who bear the cost of plastic waste trade are not the plastic producers, but those living in poverty, people of colour, Indigenous peoples, rural communities, and fenceline and environmental justice communities in low and middle-income countries like Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey, and Senegal, among others.
Little wonder that the waste trade is referred to as waste colonialism and environmental injustice, or even racism – after all, these waste flows highlight the power imbalance between economically developed, waste-importing countries in the Global North and less affluent, recipient nations.
Instead of finding solutions to domestic waste, high-income countries externalise the problem and its cost – both financial and environmental – to other countries, while touting themselves as champions of waste management and recycling. Here’s another incredulous detail: when plastic waste from Germany is exported and handled by certified recycling plants abroad, it is also factored into German recycling rates.
What Drives Waste Trade?
Unsustainable plastic production, the fossil fuel economy, capitalism, and consumerism are responsible for driving the waste trade. As we produce more plastic, our capitalist economies find creative ways to make consumers use more plastic – our daily needs and the products we want are heavily wrapped – and the responsibility of disposal is shifted onto the individual. Waste segregation, while crucial, merely gives individuals a false sense of ‘having dealt with the problem’. Segregated waste is easier to ship abroad. Studies have shown that exporting plastic waste creates a psychological distance from the issue of plastic pollution, provides an artificial sense of a cleaner local environment, and promotes further plastic consumption.
In addition, weak legislative frameworks and corruption exacerbate the issue. Weak legislative frameworks create loopholes for plastic waste to be mislabeled as 'recyclable material' and shipped without proper oversight. Sometimes, plastic waste is traded without prior informed consent – exporters withhold critical information about hazardous or toxic contents, preventing importing countries from making informed decisions about whether to accept it. Thus, contaminated and toxic shipments reach recipient countries, which are then forced to deal with the fallout. Corruption, at either end, means that officials may be involved in falsifying manifests, issuing permits incorrectly, obstructing inspections, and overlooking violations.
When Global North countries ship their waste, it usually ends up in landfills like this in weaker economies like Indonesia, where it is further processed by hand and often incinerated. Photo credit: ECOTON.
Current And Emerging Policies On Plastic Waste Trade
Over the past five to six years, various policies have tried to tackle the scale and severity of the problem. As with all policies that challenge the status quo, there is significant resistance before ratification, and subsequently, countries are slow to adopt and implement the regulations.
The Basel Convention's Plastic Waste Amendments, which took effect on January 1, 2021, aimed to strengthen controls on the transboundary movement of plastic waste, particularly in distinguishing between hazardous and non-hazardous waste. It included a provision for prior written consent from importing and transit countries for most types of plastic scrap and waste; however, this was a voluntary guideline that has failed to curb or control plastic waste trade.
Since 2022, negotiations for a Global Plastics Treaty – which aims to take a holistic view of the plastic pollution crisis, and address it at every stage of its lifecycle – have been underway, and waste trade is a highly contentious topic. While in principle, the German plastics industry supports the treaty and agrees that strong global regulations are crucial, it has a myopic view of the scope, insisting that the treaty be limited to waste management and recycling. This view threatens to dilute the more aggressive stance adopted by the European Union and other countries that have united under the "high ambition coalition".
In 2024, the EU Waste Shipment Regulation, representing the most significant overhaul of EU waste export rules in decades, issued a ban-by-default of all EU waste exports to non-OECD countries, unless specifically approved. It also stipulates a complete prohibition on all plastic waste exports to non-OECD countries from November 21, 2026, to at least May 21, 2029.
While the scope of these policies continues to evolve, loopholes persist, and implementation will unfold in stages, they offer a critical framework for halting global plastic waste trade — but only if enforced collectively, monitored, and periodically refined, with clearly articulated penalties for violators.
How Can Germany Lead The Way?
As an economic and technological juggernaut, Germany can play a vital role in curbing plastic waste trade and, in turn, addressing the issue of global plastic pollution. Waste incineration, a carbon-intensive process, doesn’t align with its ambitious Energiewende — the transition to low-carbon, non-fossil fuel energy — so why should other countries be forced to adopt incineration processes to deal with Germany’s plastics waste?
As a primary exporting country, Germany also bears responsibility for curbing its plastic waste exports. Germany must enforce the EU Waste Shipment Regulations with the same diligence as its national legislation, and ensure any loopholes are sealed. When forced to acknowledge the scale of domestic plastic waste generation and the inability to deal effectively with it, the real source of the problem will become evident: plastic production.
Lastly, as part of the EU, Germany must support a robust Global Plastics treaty, with binding caps on plastic production, provisions for reuse systems, and strict controls on chemicals of concern. As production is the most carbon-intensive stage of the plastics lifecycle, this would also align with Germany’s domestic energy principles. Capping production means less waste to export; mandating reuse systems means less reliance on disposal pathways disguised as recycling; and controls on chemicals of concern would mitigate some of the downstream impacts of plastic waste.
By aligning its domestic climate and energy goals with international policy, Germany can demonstrate that environmental leadership today requires confronting plastic pollution at every stage — from production to disposal to cross-border dumping.
Note: a translated version of this article was published in the December 2025 issue of südlink, DAS NORD-SÜD-MAGAZIN VON INKOTA, under the title: Europäischer Abfallkolonialismus. This is the original version in English.
