My recent post highlighted Ghana’s plight in waste colonialism related to the textile trade. This time we focus on Chile. Chile is Latin America’s biggest consumer of clothes and, in 2022, imported around 124,000 tonnes of second-hand textiles from across the world. In the same year, it was estimated that 300 hectares in northern Chile had been contaminated by textile waste. The world’s chronic overproduction of textiles and fast fashion culture are a big part of this story.

According to the UN, clothing production doubled from 2000 to 2015 and the world produces around 92 million tonnes of textile waste every year, 89% of which contains synthetic fibres. If we continue with our throwaway fast fashion culture, this situation will only get worse. Sub-Saharan Africa is a major destination for the Global North’s unwanted clothing, receiving 70% of the world’s donated clothing. Shockingly, some of these clothes arrive in Africa having been slashed t

Indonesia is one of the most recent Southeast Asian countries to ban plastic waste imports. Despite the ban, the consequences of plastic waste imports inundating Indonesian communities remain, and they serve as a warning for neighbouring countries yet to impose their own bans. The Indonesian government initially attempted to create livelihoods with the waste imports. Paper mills were to use these imports to source scrap paper to reuse in their production, and local communitie

The consequences of ocean plastic for marine life are devastating - and often invisible. While viral images of whales dying with bellies full of bags grab public attention, the broader damage runs much deeper. Over 100,000 marine mammals die each year due to plastic entanglement or ingestion (WWF 2021). At least 340 species have been recorded entangled in debris, especially fishing gear like nets and ropes. Once trapped, animals can suffocate, drown or suffer debilitating in

Single-use soft plastics, such as sachets and crisp packets, are produced on a massive scale but are nearly impossible to recycle. Nevertheless, they are exported across the world for waste management. The sorting process for soft plastic waste is difficult and requires that workers identify and separate over seven different types of plastics, often by burning them and smelling the fumes produced. To be recycled, the sorted plastic must then be cut into fine pieces, washed, a

Plastic doesn’t get into the sea on its own. It travels there usually via leakage from poorly managed waste systems. Understanding this journey is key to shoring up these systems. Around 19 million tonnes of plastics leak into the environment on a yearly basis. Of this, around 14 million tonnes enters rivers, coasts and other water systems. An estimated 11 million tonnes then reach the ocean, which equates to around 0.5% of all global plastic waste. How does this happen? In m

Here in the UK, 9.25 million tonnes of plastic waste leaves our dockyards and heads to developing countries. Why do we ship it off? Because the UK government wants to offload the responsibility of processing our plastic waste. However, this comes at the significant detriment of importing countries’ economies, environments, and health. For three decades, China imported over 70% of the world’s plastic waste, but that all changed in 2018. In the eight years since China banned th

Single-use soft plastics, such as sachets and crisp packets, are produced on a massive scale but are nearly impossible to recycle. Inadequate investment in waste management results in these plastics ending up in rivers, oceans, streets, and backyards across the world. The trouble with sachets… Soft plastics - defined as flexible plastic materials that do not hold a specific shape - are produced from natural gas or fossil fuels that are extracted from shale (a rock composed of

The global trade in plastic waste reveals stark inequalities. For decades, high-income countries like the UK, US, Germany and Japan exported much of their plastic waste to lower-income nationals, often with weak waste infrastructures (OECD 2022, Plastics Treaty Briefing 2023). This practice, often referred to as “waste colonialism,” offloads the environmental burden of consumption onto those least able to manage it. As recently as 2018, Asia imported 70-80% of the world’s tr

If there’s one thing to take away from the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC 2025) and the ocean plastics crisis, it’s that solutions do exist, but that they’re not scaling, not enforced and not shared equally. Cleanup technology may help in pollution hotspot areas, but they treat symptoms, not causes and are cost intensive. Recycling has a role, but its effectiveness is vastly overstated and most plastics are actually not recyclable to date. Individual actions - whilst