The amount of plastic waste generated by humanity has been out of control for a long time. Recycling, as the only possible tool, proved to be insufficient on its own: barely 6% is recycled worldwide. Faced with this reality, developed countries often export waste to Latin America. The data comes from Greenpeace.
A recent study carried out by OjoPúblico revealed that Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Chile and Colombia entered 1.06 million tons of this type of waste in the last decade. Imports came from almost all over the world.
To have a dimension of the enormous amount of plastic waste received between 2012 and 2022, it is enough to say that it came to be the equivalent of 118 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower. The report also found that companies in the United States sent the most plastic trash.
It is a business that moves millions of dollars and is carried out claiming that plastic garbage is sold to be recycled and become raw material for lower quality products or textiles.
However, this rarely happens. Instead, discards end up in landfills where they join the 225 million tons of waste that these countries generate each year.
The level of this type of waste has increased throughout Latin America since 2018, when China decided to stop importing this type of garbage. From then to date, part of the continent has received 53 million tons of these products. In 2021, 12 million tons of plastic purchased by Latin America came from the United States alone.
For inquiries on this topic, contact:
Aurora Lugo (Greenpeace): aurora.lugo@greenpeace.org – +54 9 11 3226-2600
Source: inncontext.net