What is ‘waste colonialism’ and why has Thailand banned imports of plastic? | Sustainability News

China had taken in nearly half of the world’s plastic waste since 1992 until it imposed an import ban in 2018.

2 comments

That seems like a stretch of the word colonialism. Colonialism usually implies exerting geopolitical control, whereas shipping plastic 'recycling' to be sorted has externalized health risks that make it undesirable.
- There's this idea called World Systems theory, that divides the world into core and peripheral countries, with the core countries extracting resources (natural, financial, or labor) and sends pollution back. This is maintained by military and/or economic power. That's the framework where this would be considered colonial. Personally, I prefer the term neocolonial