A majority of Australia's plastic waste ends up being stockpiled in warehouses or shipped to south-east Asia to be illegally burned, according to a bombshell report.
Instead of being reused or recycled, tonnes of our plastic waste is being dumped, buried or burned in illegal processing facilities and junkyards overseas.
The worrying trend began to emerge after China shut its doors to Australia's plastic waste in January last year, while India followed suit in March with several other Asian countries looking to enforce similar crackdowns.
The truth about where Australia's plastic waste is going is set to be exposed on Sunday's night's episode of 60 Minutes.
Plastic Forests founder and owner David Hodge (pictured) has lifted the lid about what's happening in Australia's plastic recycling industry and has called for change
Waste and recycling organisations have called for an urgent government investment into infrastructure for the industry so plastic waste can be reprocessed on home soil instead of being stockpiled in warehouses or dumped overseas.
'I think most people in Australia feel lied to, I think they feel disappointed,' Plastic Forests founder David Hodge told the program.
'We haven't built the infrastructure. We haven't thought ahead. Now we're here and we're drowning in plastic.'
His company hopes the segment will amp up the discussion and light the fire for an overhaul to processes in Australia's plastic recycling industry.
'Recycling only works when people, corporates and government buy products made with recycled content. As we know, the options to send our waste or a misallocated resource overseas will come to an end,' a post on Plastic Forests' Facebook page stated this week.
Tonnes of tonnes of waste has ended up dumped, buried or burned in illegal processing facilities and junkyards across south-east Asia
Australia's plastic recycling industry relied on China for two decades until a ban on 24 types of solid waste, including plastic was enforced in January 2018.
India, which was the fourth biggest import for Australia's waste last December followed China's footsteps in March.
Australia's recyclable rubbish is now being dumped in Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia, which received more than 71,000 tonnes of our plastic in the last year alone, according to 60 Minutes.
A recent analysis of Australia's waste exports
