GEORGE TOWN: Forty-two containers of plastic waste that are due to be shipped back to the United Kingdom account for just a fraction of all the plastic waste that have been imported into Malaysia illegally.
In Penang alone, there are more than 200 containers that remain at the North Butterworth Container Terminal, according to a spokesman from the port operator, Penang Port Sdn Bhd.
This is about half of the waste that has been sitting at the container terminal for the past 12 months.
Phee Boon Poh, the state executive councillor in charge of the environment, wants to invoke the Basel Convention to ship the waste back to the countries of origin as soon as possible.
“The longer it stays onshore, the greater the losses that Penang Port will incur,” he said.
It is estimated that the port has already incurred losses of RM1.5 million in uncollected storage charges.
Over and above that is the environmental damage that can occur if the plastic waste degrades.
Southeast Asia has become a dumpsite for plastic waste from developed countries since China stopped importing such waste last year.
Among the countries that have been exporting such waste to Malaysia are Australia, Canada, Portugal, the United States, Mexico, Japan, Slovenia, Belgium, the Dominican Republic and the United Kingdom.
It was announced on Monday that the UK government has agreed to take back 42 containers of plastic waste, in accordance with the Basel Convention.
Phee told a press conference yesterday that Penang was prepared to highlight the issue in the foreign media.
“We will host representatives of foreign media agencies and show them the types of waste that their countries have shipped to Malaysia. We hope that this will make the culprits show remorse,” he said.
Phee said he recently highlighted the issue to a BBC news crew and that convinced the British authorities that the best way forward was for them to accept responsibility and ship the waste back to their country.
