Indonesia Returns Plastic Waste To Australia

Indonesia has announced it will send 100 containers of contaminated plastic waste back to Australia to make it clear the country does not wish to become a "dumping ground". Indonesia had returned at least nine containers  to Australia in the past month because they contained contaminated waste and could not be recycled.

The sheer number of containers to be returned to Australia, which was confirmed on Wednesday by Indonesia's customs officials, highlighted the massive volume of plastic waste Australia has been sending to Indonesia for recycling.

Customs officers, police and officials from the Environment department opened two containers holding contaminated Australian recycling waste before a huge media scrum at Jakatra's Tanjung Priok on Wednesday.

The containers contained mostly plastic, but food waste and liquid was also visible. The nine displayed will be sent back to Australia on Wednesday, with the remainder to follow in separate shipments.

The 100 Australian containers are part of a total of 547 containers that Indonesia has inspected and found to be polluted by so-called B3 waste.

B3 is short for Bahan Berbahaya dan Beracun and includes medical waste and materials that could be explosive, inflammable, reactive, infectious or corrosive.

Of those 547 containers, 331 have been re-exported to their country of origin while the paperwork for another 216 is still being finalised. It is likely that some of those 331 containers are already on the way to Australia.

Indonesia plans to return contaminated plastic waste to several other countries including the United States, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Slovenia, New Zealand and China.

Director-General of Customs Heru Pambugi said three companies "had been found to have imported plastic waste mixed with rubbish and B3 waste".

"One of the companies did not have the required documents [to import the containers]".

Those companies were responsible for importing all 100 of the Australian containers being returned.

Customs, Heru said, was acting on the instructions of President Joko Widodo and the decision to return the containers "showed the consistency of the government of Indonesia ... on the importation of plastic waste".

Ahmad Gunarwan, a senior official from Indonesia's environment department, said "we don't want Indonesia to become a dumping ground for scrap waste".

In total, 2041 containers had been inspected in a joint operation by Customs, the ministry of Environment, the national police and local government agencies across the country. Indonesian authorities had impounded eight containers of plastic waste in SUrabaya, the country's second biggest city, and another container in the port city of Batam.

Some of those containers have since been shipped back to Australia and it was known that more containers had been impounded.

Last month, the Morrison government announced it was working on a plan to ban all domestic waste exports, including plastics, paper, glass and tyres.

Malaysia also plans to send material back to Australia, while Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines are among the nations that have tightened their laws about the importation of plastic waste.

The global recycling industry was up-ended when China effectively banned the importation of plastic waste for recycling in January 2018 under its so-called 'national sword' policy.