Dr. Steve Wong
黃楚祺博士
On January 17, the European Parliament voted in Strasbourg to further strictly restrict and prohibit the export of some solid waste. As a result, 594 votes were in favor, five were against, and 43 abstained. The EU member states are now to proceed with the discussions on details and timelines for the implementation.
The spirit of the Regulation is to encourage local recycling by member countries as long as it complies with the environmental principle of waste management and facility. If waste recycling is to occur in another EU country, it must go through the notification system, and only a competent and qualified factory can do the processing. If the waste is for export to non-EU countries such as Turkey and UK, the procedures are more complicated.
In a recent conference, I raised the questions of :
a) To what extent the imports by recyclers in Southeast Asian countries be affected? The answer is “Exports of non-processed waste plastics to non-OECD countries are prohibited, which makes using HS Code 3915 impossible”.
b) Is the export of regrinds or repro-pellets to Southeast Asian countries allowed? The answer is “It depends on the import policy and standards of the individual country”.
c) With the US being an OECD country, is there any restriction for exports of solid waste to EU countries? This topic was not further elaborated.
Once the above Regulation comes into force, the supply source for waste plastics from the EU to the recycling industry in Southeast Asian countries will be hard hit. In 2018, the global trade of solid waste was 182,000,000 tons, of which the EU’s exports to non-OECD countries accounted for 33,000,000 tons, and Turkey was the top one at 7 to 8 million tons. Though the volume of waste plastics was not listed separately, Turkey was assumed to be the biggest importing country. Therefore, our industry needs to develop supply sources outside the EU, such as the UK, the US, and African countries. On the other hand, we can also explore and supply to countries that rely on EU sources, such as Turkey.
Government officials involved in legislation need more understanding of our recycling industry. The change in regulations this time is to prevent solid waste from being dumped in landfills or illegally burned after being exported to developing countries or even washed into the oceans and polluting the environment. Officials seem to think that our industry pays expensive transportation costs, the price for the goods and customs clearing, etc., and then sends these to be landfilled! Our industry would like to have more discussions with the relevant parties involved in the legislation before the laydown of details. We hope they can exclude processed plastic scraps or repro-pellets from the restriction list.