Reporter's Diary: Legal recyclers pay the price for plastic waste dumping scandal
By Rian Maelzer
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02:19

Pulling up in front of the shiny glass-fronted building, I couldn't believe this would house a plastic recycling plant. The surprises didn't end there. The interior of the C2 Polymer plant itself was clean, orderly and bright. And almost unheard of in a Malaysian factory, the workers were all locals rather than foreign migrant laborers.

The legal recycling plant is clean, orderly and bright. /CGTN Photo

The legal recycling plant is clean, orderly and bright. /CGTN Photo

C2 Polymer director Ng Choon Boon told me it had been a conscious decision to hire all locals, just as it was a conscious decision to create a plastic recycling plant to the highest standards of production as well as solid waste and wastewater management.

This plant's workers are all local, rare for Malaysia. /CGTN Photo

This plant's workers are all local, rare for Malaysia. /CGTN Photo

This plant, about 40 kilometers outside Kuala Lumpur, stands in sharp contrast to the unlicensed operations I had seen last year, when it emerged that Malaysia had become the preferred dumping ground for the developing world's plastic waste. Statistics suggest that after China slammed its doors shut to such imports, almost 16 percent of global plastic waste exports ended up in Malaysia in 2018.

Malaysians were shocked by sights such as this at an unlicensed plastic waste plant. /CGTN Photo

Malaysians were shocked by sights such as this at an unlicensed plastic waste plant. /CGTN Photo

Much of it wasn't even recyclable. The illegal factories either processed it with no oversight or environmental controls, dumped it, or worse still, burned it. It was causing people living near these illegal plants sleepless nights, literally and figuratively, as the trucks containing the plastics rolled in under cover of dark, and air turned acrid with smoke from the covert burning.

Much of the illegally imported waste was unrecyclable rubbish. /CGTN Photo

Much of the illegally imported waste was unrecyclable rubbish. /CGTN Photo

Malaysia's authorities eventually acted, imposing a ban on plastic waste imports and shuttering more than 100 unlicensed plants. But there was a problem. The legal recycling industry got caught in the backlash.

"It actually crippled the whole industry," Daniel Loo of the Malaysian Plastics Recyclers Association told me. "For us as legal operators, we don't import those kinds of rubbish. We really import waste that is actually clean and recyclable."

Ng Choon Boon's C2 Polymer recycles clean, sorted used packaging from the U.S. /CGTN Photo

Ng Choon Boon's C2 Polymer recycles clean, sorted used packaging from the U.S. /CGTN Photo

Malaysia's recycling efforts for its own commercial and household waste is rudimentary at best. This means that in order to be economically viable, the domestic recycling industry relies on imported raw materials. 

"[At] this current moment, the government has actually set to every importer to have at least 30 percent local waste to be absorbed by each and every factory," Loo explained.

That means that operations like C2 Polymer needs to import 70 percent of their raw materials. Ng told me that his company has two factories in the U.S. The waste that they import – plastic sheeting and packaging – is already cleaned and sorted when it arrives in Malaysia.

The industry aims for a 70-30 mix of imported and locally sourced waste. /CGTN Photo

The industry aims for a 70-30 mix of imported and locally sourced waste. /CGTN Photo

The workers mix the imported and local plastic in roughly a 70-30 ratio. It is shredded, before going through two washing processes. Any paper labels or other non-plastic substances are filtered out and collected to send to an industrial landfill. The plastic is then dried before being melted and turned into tiny pellets like split peas. The shipment I see that day is headed for China.

The plastic is washed twice, with the waste water treated and recycled. /CGTN Photo

The plastic is washed twice, with the waste water treated and recycled. /CGTN Photo

For a while the government completely froze all permits even for the licensed operators to import plastic waste. The situation has now eased somewhat, though the industry says it faces far more obstacles than before.

Some groups though feel the regulations need to be tougher still.

Paul Selvaraj heads the Federation of Malaysian Consumers' Associations. "I think the way forward is to ban," he said. "Once it's stopped, then you can talk of regulation. Now it has gone way above what can be managed by the government. So the first step in terms of protection of the country, protection of consumers is to ban and then to see the regulatory side, what is recyclable. But there has to be very strict enforcement."

Loo and Ng said the authorities have gotten serious about enforcing rules to prevent the importation of non-recyclable "sampah plastilk" – plastic rubbish, as they call it.

Ng told me that lately the shipping containers arrive at his plant with the original seal replaced by a customs' department seal, indicating the container was inspected and verified as containing clean, recyclable material.

Ng and Loo welcome the government's moves to prevent Malaysia from becoming a dumping ground for other countries' waste. But they want to see the government do more to boost the separation and recycling of waste by local households and businesses.

Recyclers say it would be cheaper if they could source their raw materials locally. /CGTN Photo

Recyclers say it would be cheaper if they could source their raw materials locally. /CGTN Photo

"It should be the other way round. We should be importing only 30 percent and 70 percent of what we recycle should be domestic waste. This is a target to achieve," said Loo.

Entirely cutting off the flow of imported plastic waste would cripple the local recycling industry, he said, leaving no one to recycle Malaysia's own homegrown waste. And seeing C2 Polymer's operations, it's clear that the industry can operate responsibly and sustainably, and help rather than hinder Malaysia's efforts to protect the environment.