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Plastic Dumping Grounds: The International Incidence of Environmental Regulation
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When China stopped accepting the world's plastic waste in 2017, that trash didn't disappear—it got rerouted to other countries, where it flooded local recycling markets and pushed some businesses to burn or dump waste illegally instead of recycling it properly. Researchers found that the resulting air pollution caused more harm to people's health than the economic benefit of having cheaper recycled materials. The takeaway: environmental laws in one country can quietly shift pollution and health risks onto people elsewhere, so cleaning up recycling in wealthy nations doesn't guarantee a cleaner, safer outcome globally.
Environmental regulations often generate environmental improvements at home, yet their consequences may extend far beyond the countries that adopt them. The international incidence of environmental regulation remains poorly understood. We study where the resulting environmental damages emerge and who ultimately bears their costs using China's 2017 ban on waste imports, which triggered a large reallocation of global recycling activity. Combining international trade data, administrative records, direct measures of firms' waste mismanagement, and local pollution data in the main destination for diverted waste, we examine the international incidence of environmental regulation by tracing the rarely observed process linking trade reallocation to firm behavior, pollution exposure, and welfare. The ban increased pollution-intensive plastic waste imports, lowering input costs for downstream firms using recyclable materials. Meanwhile, imported waste displaced domestic recyclables, leading firms to adopt harmful disposal methods. The environmental damages from air pollution exceeded the economic gains from access to lower-cost inputs.
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‘Plastic pollution hotspots’ spawn a public health crisis across Latin America
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Since China stopped accepting the world's plastic waste in 2018, much of it has been redirected to Latin America, where overwhelmed waste systems can't keep up. This is creating pollution hotspots that expose local communities to health risks, including contact with toxic chemicals and microplastics that can end up in water, food, and eventually our bodies. The findings highlight how global waste-trade decisions in one part of the world can create serious public health burdens for people living somewhere else entirely.
Will you take my (s)crap? Waste havens in the global plastic waste trade
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This economic study analyzed global plastic waste trade flows following China's 2018 import ban, finding that plastic waste shifted to new destination countries in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. The global movement of plastic waste affects where it is processed and how much ends up in environments as microplastics.
The Double Edged Sword: The Economic and Environmental Impact of China’s 2018 Imported Plastics Ban on U.S.-Asia Relations
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This study analyzed U.S. plastic waste export data from 2013 to 2024 following China's 2018 import ban, finding that while China's air pollution declined 34% as it stopped accepting plastic waste, Malaysia's PM2.5 levels rose 31% as imports surged — illustrating how plastic waste bans can shift environmental burdens to lower-income nations rather than solving the underlying problem.
Traded Plastic, Traded Impacts? Designing Counterfactual Scenarios to Assess Environmental Impacts of Global Plastic Waste Trade
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This study used life cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental impact of global plastic waste trade in 2022 across 18 countries. The research found that trading plastic waste internationally resulted in lower overall environmental impacts compared to countries processing all their waste domestically, partly because importing countries have higher recycling rates. However, the benefits depend heavily on actual recycling rates, and the trade can shift pollution burdens to lower-income countries.
Waste Sovereignty and Plastic Colonialism: Environmental Power and Populism in the Global Political Economy of Waste
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Wealthy countries often ship their plastic trash to poorer nations that don't have the infrastructure to safely process it, meaning that waste frequently ends up burned or dumped instead of recycled. This matters for your health because poorly managed plastic waste breaks down into microplastics and toxic chemicals that can contaminate local water, food, and air — pollution that wealthier countries have essentially outsourced rather than eliminated. This paper is a theoretical analysis (not new lab data) proposing a framework for understanding this unequal waste trade and how affected communities are pushing back through bans and stricter regulations.
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When a large batch of papers lands in the Atlas, we read through it and send a short write-up of what stood out.