The 2nd Annual International Day of Zero Waste on 30 March highlights both the importance of bolstering waste management globally and the need to promote sustainable consumption and production patterns. Below, learn about how preventing and combatting waste trafficking can help build a circular economy.
Waste trafficking, or the illegal trade of waste, is widely considered a high-profit, low-risk crime worth billions of dollars per year.
Though extremely lucrative, waste trafficking is hard to detect, investigate, and prosecute. Penalties are usually unproportional to the damage caused and not as high as those for the trafficking of other illicit goods, such as drugs – making it an attractive business for criminals.
Waste regulations are complicated and inconsistent across borders. Different countries have different interpretations of legal definitions of waste, and sometimes countries of origin do not know the applicable rules and regulations in the country of destination, leading to varying levels of enforcement. Criminal actors exploit these loopholes to conduct their illicit activities.
Criminals involved in waste trafficking often disguise their illegal exports within legitimate exports – for example, by declaring hazardous waste as non-hazardous on a customs form. Some falsely declare waste as second-hand goods. Others bribe officials to look the other way or exploit additional loopholes in regulation and enforcement to avoid detection.
Waste trafficking is also a “cyber-enabled’ crime, meaning that e-commerce platforms and social media can help facilitate illegal waste trade transactions.
Illegal waste typically flows from higher-income countries in Europe, North America and Asia to middle and lower-income countries in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Africa.
Illegal waste can affect human health, damage ecosystems, and hurt the economy of destination countries by deterring development, intensifying economic disparities, or hurting people’s livelihoods.
Waste trafficking can have a severe impact on human health and the environment. Once illegal waste reaches its destination countries, it often ends up in illegal landfills and unauthorized storage sites - polluting oceans, ground and surface water, damaging soil and air quality, and degrading ecosystems. Other times, illegal waste is burned in the open, releasing toxic chemicals and affecting the health of nearby communities.
The circular economy promotes the share, repair, reuse, recycling, and reduction of materials. In other words, it is a system that prevents materials from becoming waste for as long as possible.
A circular economy therefore reduces the demand for raw materials while generating fewer greenhouse gas emissions and less waste.
Waste trafficking, however, can prevent waste from being re-used or re-purposed – leaving the demand for raw materials unchanged.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) developed a Legislative Guide on Waste Trafficking to support States in enacting or strengthening domestic legislation to prevent and combat waste trafficking.
Funded by the European Union (EU), UNODC’s Unwaste project in Southeast Asia, implemented in cooperation with the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), aims to fight waste trafficking between the EU and Southeast Asia by supporting the transition towards a circular economy.
On Tuesday, 2 April, UNODC will release its publication Turning the Tide: A Look into the European Union to Southeast Asia Waste Trafficking Wave, which explores the connections between waste trafficking, corruption, money laundering and organized crime. Check back at unodc.org for more!
UNEP and the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) facilitate the observance of Zero Waste Day. All Member States, organizations of the United Nations system and relevant stakeholders are encouraged to implement zero-waste initiatives at local, regional, subnational and national levels. Learn more here.
