Discarded fast fashion in Atacama Desert, Chile. Photo: AFP via Getty Images.
An investigation reveals that the United States has invaded several Latin American countries with millions of tons of toxic plastic waste.
In a recent report, the Cross-Border Investigative Network OjoPúblico specifies that the United States and European countries have sent, in the last 10 years, 111 million tons of toxic plastic waste, mainly syringes, old monitor casings and buckets, to Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Chile, and Ecuador.
According to the investigation, after China closed its doors to the world’s waste in 2018, the United States increased the shipment of its plastic waste to the Southern Hemisphere.
“The amount of plastic waste imported by countries in the region between 2012 and 2022,” the report states, “is equivalent to 118 times the weight of the Eiffel Tower.”
Mexico is the main importer of plastic waste in Latin America, followed by Peru, Chile, and Colombia.
🚯 #AmenazaPlástica A México 🇲🇽, Perú 🇵🇪, Colombia 🇨🇴, Ecuador 🇪🇨 y Chile 🇨🇱 han ingresado 1,06 millones de toneladas de residuos plásticos en la última década. 🧵
👉 https://t.co/8SCZH9mFG0 pic.twitter.com/4ZCe8W54Pn
— OjoPúblico (@Ojo_Publico) November 13, 2022
The report includes a condemnation from the Autonomous Group for Environmental Investigation (GAIA) that world powers maintain their environmental policies at a high cost for less developed countries.
In addition, it points out that the lack of supervision at customs and by the authorities allows companies to acquire this waste, even illegally, to generate assets, despite the fact that the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) has warned that the plastics trade can involve illegal labor, money laundering, corruption, and tax evasion.
GAIA requires governments to comply with the Basel Convention, created to combat toxic waste deposits in developing countries, and greater transparency about the type of plastic waste that is arriving in the region, to prevent these countries from becoming new global garbage dumps.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/FV/SL
