Germany was the world’s largest plastic waste exporter in 2025, sending more than 810,000 tons abroad, mainly to Turkey, Malaysia, and Indonesia. These recipient countries have faced illegal dumping, ...

Since 2019, the 191 countries that are party to an international agreement called the Basel Convention have agreed to classify mixed plastic trash as “hazardous waste.” This designation essentially ...

Malaysia says it is no longer accepting plastic waste from a handful of nations, including the U.S., that didn’t ratify the Basel Convention. Malaysia emerged as a major destination for waste from the ...

Picture a pile of trash the size of Manhattan and taller than one and a half Empire State Buildings. That’s how much plastic waste the world is predicted to be generating every year by 2050 if nothing ...

Children play in a pile of scrap plastic in a village in East Java, Indonesia, while their mother nearby spends the day picking through it for tiny pieces of cardboard to sell back to the paper mill.