'Licence to Hide': Western Plastic Waste Dumped in Myanmar

For several years sites across Shwepyithar township have been filling up with trash. STR / AFP
For several years sites across Shwepyithar township have been filling up with trash. STR / AFP
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'Licence to Hide': Western Plastic Waste Dumped in Myanmar

For several years sites across Shwepyithar township have been filling up with trash. STR / AFP
For several years sites across Shwepyithar township have been filling up with trash. STR / AFP

In a working-class neighborhood of Myanmar's Yangon, plastic waste is piled a meter high, the toxic product of what a recent investigation said is rampant dumping of Western trash.

For several years sites across Shwepyithar township have been filling up with trash that chokes fields, blocks the drainage of monsoon rains and causes fire risks.

The trash is the runoff of global plastic production, which has more than doubled since the start of the century to reach 460 million tons per year.

"In the past, during the rainy season I could pick watercress from this field to eat," one resident told AFP, asking not to be identified for security reasons.

"Because of the plastic waste, now we can't get any watercress to eat. Instead, we get a smell."

An investigation released this week by collaborative newsroom Lighthouse Reports and six partners has found some of the waste dumped here comes from the West.

The mix includes wrapping and containers for products ranging from Danone yogurt to Polish company Spomlek's cheese.

Items from German-owned UK supermarket Lidl and pasta packaging from Canada's Unico have also been found.

None of these originated in Myanmar, but they have ended up there despite a law prohibiting the import of plastic waste unless it is clean and ready to recycle.

The ban was imposed after China stopped accepting foreign plastic waste in 2018.

Several local recycling factories admitted to Lighthouse Reports that waste they can't process is often dumped or burned.

Porous border
Just how the waste enters Myanmar, and in what quantities, is unclear.

The investigation suggests Thailand is a key passage for illegally exported plastics.

According to United Nations Comtrade data, most of Myanmar's plastic waste imports come from Thailand.

Almost 7,500 tons entered in 2021, the last year it reported figures.

But the roughly 2,400-kilometer (1,490-mile) border the countries share is extremely porous and crossed with ease by traffickers and smugglers.

Officials on both sides of the border do little to inspect arriving waste, Lighthouse Reports said.

"The data collected is often out of date, and there's no check on that data," said Willie Wilson, former vice chair of Interpol's Pollution Crime Working Group, referring not just to Comtrade but all trade data.

"We're left with this fog of mis-declared, missing data. It's a license to hide in plain sight."

In July Myanmar's junta said there was a $1.639 billion difference between what Thailand said it exported to Myanmar, and what Myanmar said it imported from Thailand.

The yawning discrepancy "might be caused by illegal trade", its Illegal Trade Eradication Steering Committee said.

AFP contacted several of the companies whose products were found in Myanmar to ask how they might have arrived, but received no immediate reply.

Locals in Shwepyithar told AFP that much of the waste dumped in their neighborhood came from recycling factories in a nearby industrial zone.

But the risks of protesting such a move in Myanmar, which has been run by a military junta since a 2021 coup, are high.

That has left an open area in Shwepyithar once earmarked for a football field transformed into a morass of plastic waste, one resident said.

"I know it's not good for the long term," she told AFP, requesting anonymity to speak about the sensitive issues.

"I don't like it at all," said another, who similarly spoke on condition of not being identified.

"But we can't do anything."



Santorini Seismic Activity Down But Schools Stay Shuttered

A tourist takes a photo at the village of Oia, as the seismic activity continues, on the island of Santorini, Greece, February 22, 2025. REUTERS/Nicolas Economou
A tourist takes a photo at the village of Oia, as the seismic activity continues, on the island of Santorini, Greece, February 22, 2025. REUTERS/Nicolas Economou
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Santorini Seismic Activity Down But Schools Stay Shuttered

A tourist takes a photo at the village of Oia, as the seismic activity continues, on the island of Santorini, Greece, February 22, 2025. REUTERS/Nicolas Economou
A tourist takes a photo at the village of Oia, as the seismic activity continues, on the island of Santorini, Greece, February 22, 2025. REUTERS/Nicolas Economou

Seismic activity on the Aegean Sea hotspot of Santorini has been "decreasing" over recent days but schools will remain closed for another week, according to authorities on the Greek island.

Thousands of earthquakes, mainly of a low magnitude, have been recorded between Santorini and Amorgos, islands in the Cyclades group southeast of the Greek mainland. They have yet to cause either casualties or significant damage but have worried authorities and residents.

"Seismic activity in the maritime region between Thira (Santorini) and Amorgos is decreasing," the ministry of civil protection said in a press release late Saturday following a meeting with the national commission of seismologists.

According to AFP, the ministry attributed the activity to a combination of tectonic movement and deep magmatic activity.

The region has not experienced a phenomenon of such magnitude since records began in 1964, experts say.

Located where the African and Anatolian tectonic plates converge, the Aegean Sea is often hit by earthquakes.

Known for its spectacular volcanic caldera, a large depression that forms when a volcano erupts and collapses, Santorini is also part of a volcanic arc with two underwater volcanoes near to its coast, Nea Kameni and Kolumbo, which last erupted in 1950 and 1650 respectively.

Authorities put the level of seismic activity inside the caldera as similar to recent days, noting a decrease in the rate of local ground deformation.

The ministry aid preventative measures would remain in force, urging residents to be alert to the risk of landslides.

Schools will meantime remain closed until Friday on Santorini and the nearby islands of Ios, Anafi and Amorgos while a ministerial assessment meeting will be held Thursday.

Authorities declared a state of emergency in Santorini and Amorgos at the start of February for a month, with schools closing while a majority of Santorini residents elected to leave the island, which saw 3.4 million visitors in 2023, leading to complaints of over-tourism.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis recently announced a support package for local businesses and workers on the island, one of Greece's most popular tourism destinations.