Exporting rubbish abroad is neo-colonialist

• The definition of colonialism is "the policy or practice of acquiring full or partial political control over another country, occupying it with settlers, and exploiting it economically"
• Around 2/3s of UK plastic waste is shipped abroad to be 'recycled'
• Much of this is not recycled and in fact ends up in landfill or is burned and has dire environmental issues
• By exporting rubbish abroad this occupies and exploits land in another country, this is a form of neo-colonialism

Exporting rubbish overseas encourages richer nations to continue to dominate the land of poorer nations, at the expense of the inhabitants’ welfare. This is consistent with colonial practices.

Colonialism concerns access to land and the subsequent dispossession of that land. In light of this, it could be argued that the practice of developed countries exporting their rubbish to poorer, developing nations displays an attitude of "assumed entitlement" to use such land as a ‘sink’. This is very much in line with neo-colonialism. For example:

• In September 2020 alone, the UK shipped 7133 metric tonnes of waste to non-OECD countries such as Malaysia, Pakistan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Turkey;

• Regulations which place fetters on the exportation of waste still reflect the idea that some pollution is acceptable, and that richer nations have a right to pollute this land;

• In typical colonial behaviour, the interests of the inhabitants of the host nation to the waste are severely neglected. To illustrate this point, 111 schools in a single Malaysian state had to be temporarily closed in 2019 after 4000 people developed serious illnesses which were later linked to the dumping of toxic waste into the Sungai Kim Kim River.

What is neo-colonialism?

While it may indeed be comparable to colonialism itself, it is worth defining the nuance behind the relatively contemporary 'neo-colonialism' before forming an opinion.

The term 'neo-colonialism' was first coined in Jean Paul Sartre's Colonialism and Neocolonialism, to refer to the continued dependence of newly-independent countries on other states and their former colonisers. Generally considered a negative term, today it broadly refers to the pseudo-colonial exploitation by developed countries, transnational corporations, and other global institutions to cultivate a dependency in underdeveloped states and preserve them as cheap reservoirs of raw materials, land, and labour. Neo-colonialism is a subtle and indirect tactic that forgoes the overt violence and control of colonialism itself, with international trade and capitalist ventures displacing direct rule.

Historical examples of neo-colonialist policies include the European control of Africa and the United States' Truman Doctrine:

• 6 European leaders, convening in Paris in 1957, established what is considered to be a "new form of economic domination over French-occupied Africa and the colonial territories of Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands." Today, we observe the impacts of these continuing neo-colonialist relationships in African nations' perpetuated dependencies on Western countries for "economic aid, loans, investment, market, and other technical assistance".

• Under the Truman Doctrine, the United States overtly established control over foreign governments on the pretext of providing protection from communism during the Cold War, offering hefty financial rewards to those nations agreeing to the policy. Continued interference in the establishment and deposition of governments to the benefit of the US - and other nations similarly implicated - allowed them to ensure that new regimes would act in their interests.

For the export of waste to come under neo-colonialism, therefore, the practice should involve the exploitation of the accepting state for the benefit of the exporting country, established through indirect means of control.

Wealthier nations are exporting unrecyclable materials to less economically developed countries (LEDCs), transferring the blame and onus of disposal.

"The most unsustainable societies are Western societies, but they make it an Asian problem,” said Chandran Nair, founder of the Global Institute for Tomorrow.

The global waste trade has been attributed to "waste colonialism", a term referring to the movement of waste across borders from areas of greater to lower socioeconomic status and privilege.

Not only is the global waste trade neo-colonialist in the occupation of land, but it is neo-colonialist in the assignment of blame to the LEDCs. Countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand are on the receiving ends of quantities of plastic ranging in the hundreds-of-thousands for recycling purposes.

• However, this recycling is made difficult with mixed and mislabeled imports. These materials often cannot be processed and contribute to dumps and landfills in the country, painting pictures of underdeveloped nations with mismanaged, ineffective waste disposal systems and polluted environments or residential areas.
• The impression thus facilitated is not one of a country shouldering the burden of disposal of another, but of a country with inferior infrastructure, management, and technology. Asian countries have been targeted internationally for their contribution to pollution in the oceans, and criticised for their inability to maintain greener standards on their own land.

"Rich countries will pressure poorer ones to be more sustainable – to conserve forests, clean up their energy sources, and curb polluting industries [...]." (Source)

As a result, LEDCs are perceived as dependent on the knowledge, systems, and resources of wealthier nations as the latter seemingly posses the capacity to keep their own states relatively clean, or are lesser contributors to oceanic waste.

• Attention is effectively derailed from Western consumer and production patterns, which are otherwise incipient sources of the ongoing plastic waste crisis.
• Importing nations are now dependent on Western 'solutions' to a problem that is, artfully, no longer a Western problem.
• Land colonialism is further perpetuated as importing nations now provide access for clean-ups, educational campaigns, and construction of incinerators.