Indonesia Returns Tons of World’s Waste

Indonesia is sending back dozens of containers of waste, which has reached, on its shore back to the wealthy nations from where it has come. Indonesia has found that the containers are contaminated with used diapers, plastic and other materials, which also added to a growing backlash in Southeast Asia, which is long been used as the dumping ground for the rubbish from across the developed nations.

On Tuesday, Indonesia’s Directorate General of Customs has said that 49 containers carrying the waste and rubbish at Batam port near Singapore will be returned to the US, Australia, France, Germany and Hong Kong after the inspections found that the contents violated Indonesia’s laws on the import of hazardous and toxic waste.

On another occasion, the head of the customs department Basuki Suryanto, at the Tanjung Perak port located in East Java says eight additional containers which contain 210 tons of waste has arrived from Australia on June 20. Though it was supposed to contain only paper it also has other waste matter.

Basuki Suryanto also said, “It turned out those containers also had household waste, used cans, plastic bottles, used oil packaging, used electronics, used baby diapers and used footwear. So we decided to return it to the country of origin”.

At the end of 2017, China has banned the import of plastic waste, which thus resulted in more waste being sent to the developing Southeast Asian nations.

In June last year, a study published in the journal ‘Science Advances’ that used the data of United Nations, found that the developed nations of the world would need a place to dump more than 110 million tons of plastic waste by 2030 because of the ban imposed by China. 

Indonesia and China themselves are among the world’s top producers of plastic waste, which is increasingly polluting their own land, sea and beaches. 

Suryanto also added that the Indonesia Company, which has imported the Australian waste to the East Java port, is now bound to return it to Australia within 90 days. No other sanction so far has been planned, he said.

Meanwhile Directorate General of Customs spokesman Deni Surjantiro clarified that the 49 containers to be sent back from Batam port were among the 65 containers of waste inspected at the port. Of the 49 containers 11 were filled with plastic trash and 38 containers were contaminated by toxic or other hazardous waste.

Surjantiro also informed that importing hazardous waste into Indonesia is a criminal offense with a maximum 12-year of imprisonment and a maximum fine of 12 billion rupiah ($850,000).

Philippines was recently in news for its involvement in a high-profile fight with Canada over the illegally transported waste. In May Philippine officials sent back 69 containers of waste to Canada. Malaysia also in the month of May said it would send back some 3,000 tons of non-recyclable plastic waste to the countries like the US, UK, Australia and Canada, from where it has come. 

Philippines also said that the Canadian garbage was transported to Philippines in 103 containers in the year 2013 and 2014, falsely declaring them as recyclable plastic wastes. Some of the garbage was disposed of, but around 69 containers were still there rotting in two Philippines ports, which contains electrical and household waste.