Malaysia to end importing of some plastic waste

Malaysia is no longer accepting plastic waste from countries, including the USA, that did not ratify the Basel Convention.

Malaysia became a major destination for American waste after China banned American waste imports in 2018.

The Basel Convention regulated plastic scrap in 2021, but each party country must adopt domestic laws to enforce those rules.

Malaysia’s Federal Government Gazette recently published notice of new customs rules taking effect from 1 July, requiring imports of all waste plastic under the 3915 tariff code, imported from any country, to be approved by a government-owned certification organisation known as SIRIM Berhad.

Basel-party countries will have to follow Basel criteria to have shipments approved.

That means mixed loads can only contain mixtures of PE, PET and PP, and all other resins must be shipped in homogenous loads. The guidelines define homogenous as reaching at least 99.5% purity.

Other countries that have not signed the convention will see a lower impact, these include Fiji, Haiti, San Marino and South Sudan.