EU "recycling" turned to Poland after China banned plastic garbage imports. There have been illegal garbage dumps (plastic and other hazardous substances from the west of EU) burning in Poland for over 10 years now, usually couple a month up to one a week.
Its run by organized crime, how it works:
Goon rents a warehouse/piece of land in Poland claiming to be a transportation/construction/recycling company usually using forged documents or homeless person fronting whole thing.
Gets paid to remove hazardous waste from UK/Scandinavia/Germany, stockpiles until place is full.
Finally either sets the place on fire to cover tracks, or the owner stops receiving payments, discovers whats stored on his property and decides to take insurance hit instead of having his assets blocked for several years while courts try to figure out if/what/who is going to pay for lawful disposal.
I totally agree, but this is about light weight packaging which is also separately collected in Germany. PET bottles is another game. Actually there even criticism for upcycling those for clothes because it is a pretty much perfect for circular economy and makes no sense to actually take it out of the circle by making clothes out of it that will for sure be burned. I understand that it seems like the positive cases are often used to hide the dirty secret about most other plastics. But actually promoting coated cardboard and paper is equally problematic.
https://wielun.naszemiasto.pl/kolejny-pozar-skladowiska-w-na...
https://portalkomunalny.pl/gospodarka-odpadami/pozary-sklado...
https://zielona.interia.pl/wiadomosci/polska/news-pozary-odp...
https://zielona.interia.pl/smieci-plastik/news-odpady-jak-ku...
EU "recycling" turned to Poland after China banned plastic garbage imports. There have been illegal garbage dumps (plastic and other hazardous substances from the west of EU) burning in Poland for over 10 years now, usually couple a month up to one a week.
Its run by organized crime, how it works:
Goon rents a warehouse/piece of land in Poland claiming to be a transportation/construction/recycling company usually using forged documents or homeless person fronting whole thing.
Gets paid to remove hazardous waste from UK/Scandinavia/Germany, stockpiles until place is full.
Finally either sets the place on fire to cover tracks, or the owner stops receiving payments, discovers whats stored on his property and decides to take insurance hit instead of having his assets blocked for several years while courts try to figure out if/what/who is going to pay for lawful disposal.
Recycling plastic is a HUGE LIE.