Major Six-Year Trends in Global Plastic Waste Trade

This chapter presents the major six-year trends (2017 through 2022) in the international trade of plastic waste including the periods before and after the implementation of China’s National Sword policy (2018) and the Basel Plastic Waste Amendments (2021). In 2018, China implemented the “National Sword” policy that effectively banned imports of plastic waste to protect their environment and develop their own domestic recycling capacity. Since exporting plastic waste is a convenient way for high-income countries to avoid disposal costs and impacts at home while counting them as “recycled,” there was a significant redirection of plastic waste shipments from going to China (including Hong Kong) to instead go to other countries that were not equipped to manage it safely and securely.