Indonesia is stopping dangerous and unwanted imports from the United States, the South China Morning Post reported, and has officially started sending them back.
What is going on?
Officials in the port city of Batam recently exported four shipping containers of banned electronic waste back to the United States
Four containers is not a lot, but Indonesian officials insisted that the shipment was the tip of the iceberg.
According to the SCMP, customs workers and inspectors with Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry discovered an unknown number of shipments “allegedly misdeclared as recyclable materials” in September.
In fact, the containers contained hazardous electronic waste, or electronic waste. That discovery led to a statement on October 3 by the Minister of the Environment Hanif Faisol Nurofiq.
“The government will not tolerate attempts to turn Indonesia into a dumping ground or processing site for illegal waste from abroad,” Hanif promised, according to SCMP.
Port officials said the containers, which contained computer parts, disks, and circuit boards, represented “only a small fraction” of illegal waste imports. The Post cited local media reports indicating that more than 900 containers had been marked for review.
To date, “dozens” of the containers had been inspected and were “confirmed to contain illegal e-waste,” according to the SCMP. Batam Customs chief Zaky Firmansyah said that all imported e-waste will be sent back to its country of origin — which was the United States, in the case of the first four.
“All containers carrying hazardous and toxic waste must be re-exported. There is no other option,” stated Firmansyah.
Why is this concerning?
Rich countries have been exporting the worst of their waste, particularly e-waste and plastic, in an “out of sight, out of mind” consumption approach.
In 2018, China — which had been importing waste for manufacturing — banned imports of 24 categories of waste, including plastic.
In 2022, Earth.org reported that the ban had “immediate and widespread repercussions and major problems for the global recycling industry,” which displaced millions of tons of plastic waste. As a result, the overflow was rerouted to other countries in Southeast Asia, leading to further import bans.
Although the problem may appear to be a matter of logistics at first glance, overconsumption and an ever-increasing volume of hazardous waste were the underlying issues.
A World Health Organization brief in October 2024 warned that e-waste was among the “fastest growing solid waste streams” worldwide, with 62 million tonnes generated in 2022. A scant 22.3% “was documented as formally collected and recycled.”
E-waste often contains toxic compounds, industrial chemicals, and hazardous heavy metals, and the general public is often unaware that it should be disposed of properly. As a result, hazardous e-waste is regularly mixed with household waste and sent to landfills.
E-waste in landfills releases those substances into the soil, air and groundwater, contaminating them.
Additionally, single-use e-waste such as disposable vapes can be volatile, with lithium-ion batteries causing fires on garbage trucks and in waste processing facilities.
What is being done about it?
In October, Hanif warned that despite enforcement challenges, Indonesia intended to prosecute the perpetrators.
On an individual level, knowing how to dispose of waste properly, especially e-waste, can help curb the risk it poses to the planet and its inhabitants.
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