Out of Sight, Out of Mind: How Britain Exports Its Plastic Waste Problem

When Britain's recycling targets are met on paper, it is worth asking: where does the plastic actually go?

The answer is increasingly overseas. Chemical recycling, as we

explored in the previous piece in this series, has failed to provide the domestic processing solution the industry promised. That failure has a direct consequence: plastic that cannot be recycled at home gets shipped abroad instead. In 2024 alone, the UK exported 598 million kilos of plastic waste, an increase of 30 million kilos from the previous year, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency.

By June 2025, UK plastic waste exports to Asia were surging, with 3.3 million kilos shipped to Indonesia and 6.8 million kilos to Malaysia in that month alone.

Mismanaged Waste

The problem is not simply one of geography. Much of this exported plastic is mismanaged, dumped, or burned in the open air. In Indonesia, communities have been found burning imported plastic waste as fuel, with environmental pollutants known as dioxins subsequently detected in eggs from nearby chickens. Workers in receiving countries bear the health consequences of waste they did not produce.

Campaigners have named this "waste colonialism." The EIA has called it an environmental scandal hiding in plain sight, arguing that exports allow the UK to register plastic as "recycled" for domestic target purposes while masking its overconsumption. Experts at Chemistry World have noted that reducing exports could actually provide more consistent feedstock for domestic recyclers — the same recyclers that chemical recycling was supposed to make redundant, but never did. The EU has already banned exports to non-OECD countries. The UK, despite a 2019 government pledge to follow suit, has yet to act.

In the final piece of this series, we look at how the law is finally starting to catch up with companies that have spent years making false promises about recycling.

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For more information contact: info@scarabtrust.org.uk

Images:

 container ship - Image by Freddy from Pixabay (ST ref: 1370)

plastic bottles recycling - Image by Hans from Pixabay (ST ref:1371)