Malaysia will stop taking U.S. plastic waste. What will California do?

Malaysia will prohibit plastic waste imports from the United States since Tuesday, as America does not comply with the International Waste Transfers Treaty with a movement that may have significant consequences for California.

According to a defender group Basel Action Network, after banning China’s American waste imports in 2018, Malaysia sent 864 shipping containers or 10 million pounds of plastic waste to Malaysia in 2024 after banning China’s American waste imports in 2018. This was the second of Georgia among the US states.

Under Malaysia Waste Directives announced last monthThe country will no longer accept plastic waste and dangerous wastes from nations that do not approve of the Basel contract, which is designed to reduce the international movement of dangerous and other wastes. The US is one of a handful of countries, including Fiji and Haiti, who does not sign the agreement.

Malaysia will continue to accept plastic wastes from Basel Signatatories. However, according to the new directives, export of these countries will be subject to the nation.

Steve Wong, General Manager of Fukutomi, a global plastic recycling company based on Hong Kong, argues that it already has an impact on shipping ports.

“The scrap inventories accumulate in ports and gardens, and with a clear guidance regarding the execution or timeline of the new system of Malaysia, the imported plastic waste market was effectively frozen,” he wrote, and wrote to people who followed the recycling trends shared over time.

Most of California’s plastic wastes are sent abroad. A spokesman for a Los Angeles Port, said he was unaware of the approaching ban. Long Beach port officials did not respond immediately to comments.

A spokesperson of an Oakland Port, the facility said, “This commodity has not seen much volume, so we do not predict any effect on this change,” he said.

According to Wong’s E -mail, the upcoming ban significantly broke the trash export routes for grocery bags, garbage boxes and plastics used in food winding.

Wong E -Postada, “Malaysia scrap plastic market, import regulations and the new control regime that came into force on July 1, 2025, widespread uncertainty in the midst of tightening in the midst of tightening,” he wrote. “Recommenders, merchants and suppliers all report a minimum plastic waste movement or do not move at all.”

Jim Puckett from Seattle -based Basel Action Network applauded Malaysia’s decision.

“Recycling ‘, the founder and conductor of the group’s strategic director, said,’ Recycling ‘is more damaging than the benefit, since only a part of the exports are recycled.” “Recyclable plastics are often dangerous or contain germs that are widely thrown, burned or released into waterways. Plastic waste exports for recycling is a complete fake and this is increasingly illegal to this plastic waste shell game.”

According to California Waste AgencyCalrecycle, the state in 2022 Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Mexico and Canada, such as 11.3 million tons of recyclable materials exported.

This number contains 100 million pounds scrap plastic. Although the number of Basel Action Network shows that more than 10 million pounds to Malaysia, Calrecycle’s 2022 report did not destroy plastic exports to individual countries.

Calrecycle spokesman, California’nın “working to reduce plastic pollution in our state and in the world” and scrap plastic exports decreased significantly in the last 10 years, he said.

Maria West, the agency’s communication director, said California exported approximately 421,000 tons or approximately 842 million pounds plastic scrap in 2018. He said that this number fell to 98% to 8,000 tons or about 16 million pounds in 2024.

Many major waste companies, including Athens services in California and Recology, did not respond immediately to comments requests.

The 1989 state law, which requires the critics of the California waste system to direct waste from regular storage areas, leads to an increase in waste exports abroad.

Until 2018, China was the largest importer of US plastic wastes. However, after implementing the national sword policy that prohibits most plastic waste imports of China, countries began to send their wastes to less advantageous nations, such as Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand.

Although some of the plastics are recycled in these countries, Most have been burned or placed in the storage areas where it drowns rivers and flows into the ocean.

Waste advocates such as Basel Action Network and participants in the Basel Convention are working to reduce contaminated, non -bodily plastic movement from economically advantageous countries such as the United States.

Jan Dell, the president of LastBeachcleanup, a plastic waste organization based on Laguna Beach, praised the Malaysian decision.

“We urge cities, waste companies, brokers and transport companies to respect the sovereign laws of Malaysia and to stop all plastic waste shipments,” he wrote. Plastic waste should not be re -published to other poor countries. “

In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a turning point designed to establish a circular economy for disposable plastic products and packaging, the Senate Bill 54, a plastic law. The law deals with the export of plastic wastes and requires that product manufacturers are recycled or compoted in a way that reduces environmental pollution of products or minimizes health effects for people who live close to where the product is sent.

Calrecycle is currently working on the drawing of arrangements that will enable the law to be implemented, but the agency’s spokesman West said that the law should go to the last market responsible for the recycling of any material, that the material enables the material to be recycled instead of being a waste or in the environment.