When China banned plastic waste imports in 2018, countries like the United States, the Netherlands, Australia, and Japan didn’t stop exporting plastic waste—they diverted their shipments to countries in Southeast Asia. New research led by Ellen Considine, fellow at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at the University of Colorado Boulder, shows that air pollution in Indonesia worsened in 2018 and 2019, when the country began receiving some of the plastic waste that previously went to China. Municipal waste collection is limited in Indonesia and open burning of solid waste is common.

Full report : Indonesia’s air quality got worse after China banned plastic waste imports, research shows.