The Disproportionate Impact of Microplastic Pollutants on Asian Countries
Image from Plastic China Documentary
Every year, thousands of children in Indonesia prematurely die due to the consumption of microplastic pollutants in their food and water. Sadly, Indonesia is not the only nation that is suffering: Bangladesh, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, China, and other Asian countries face disproportionate levels of microplastic pollutants in their environment due to the exploitation from wealthier nations.
To compare, in America, the average number of microplastics inhaled per month is 300,000, while in Asian countries including Thailand, the average number of microplastics inhaled per month is 2.8 million. Despite government intervention and plastic ban policies, plastic pollution is still a large issue concerning the Asian population. In 2002, Bangladesh’s government issued the first comprehensive plastic ban, yet microplastics are still present in water bodies including the Bay of Bengal, which is responsible for millions of liters of drinking water. The lack of leadership and ownership from richer and more developed countries including the United States, Canada, European countries, and others causes underdeveloped countries to suffer.
In 2018, the United States and other developed countries exported 320,000 tons of plastic waste to Indonesia. The waste was then burned near local communities in Indonesia emitting harmful fumes that caused deadly illnesses to residents including mutations to neurodevelopment, reproductive organs, and respiratory functions. In addition to health problems, open burning can also destroy crop fields that are vital to the communities and provide economic stability to farmers and families. The contaminated crop fields are in some cases impossible to fully recover leading to a reduction in future crop production and revenue. Furthermore, on my last trip to Mumbai, India, I saw the beaches that were covered in plastic waste with a few individuals trying to clean up the entire 6-kilometer beach, but the waste piles continue to grow each year. The plastic waste accumulated on the Mumbai beach exceeds the number of fish in many seas. Sadly, besides smaller clean-up campaigns there is no large government project that is designed to clean and regulate the beaches in India and other neighboring countries.
Exporting plastic is a common practice that has been falsely regarded as recycling by wealthy countries. The plastic that is often left outside homes and offices to be collected by recycling companies is not all recycled; in reality, most of the plastic is illegally exported to East and South Asian countries. In addition, many of those countries do not have large-scale waste management systems or restrictions that can control the shipments.
Another large issue arising is the accumulation of plastic waste in Southeast Asian water bodies. Each year, over 30 million metric tons of plastic waste are found in the ocean near Southeast Asia. Even when that plastic is extracted or collected from the water bodies, the plastic is unable to be recycled due to the complex chemical structure of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which makes it almost difficult to naturally deconstruct. When large pieces of plastic continue to break down into smaller pieces, microplastics, the particles never disappear due to the difficulty of breaking the synthetic structure. Thus, the accumulation of plastic waste in Asia is harming not only humans but also the marine species exposed to the plastics.
To address this problem, in the past decade, Asian governments have stepped up to make stricter laws that restrict imports. The Chinese government’s 2018 Chinese Sword Policy is an example where China restricted shipments that were contaminated with waste and low-quality recyclable goods from outside countries. As a result, landfills in the US and other large exporting nations grew over 22% as China was no longer accepting their shipments of plastic waste. Furthermore, nations including the United States are now forced to redesign their recycling and waste management systems to control waste accumulation in landfills. But in recent years there hasn't been a direct solution to reduce waste production and allocation.
Today, microplastic pollution is still a large issue haunting Asian countries. If there is no strong and unified direction taken by the counties, plastic will continue to accumulate in the residents’ land, water bodies, food, bodies, unborn children, and all other forms of life all around them. It is critical that local communities and governments can work together to build stronger waste management systems to protect future generations.