Global waste trade

The global waste trade is the international trade of waste between countries for further treatment, disposal, or recycling. Toxic or hazardous wastes are often imported by developing countries from developed countries.

The World Bank Report What a Waste: A Global Review of Solid Waste Management, describes the amount of solid waste produced in a given country. Specifically, countries which produce more solid waste are more economically developed and more industrialized. The report explains that "Generally, the higher the economic development and rate of urbanization, the greater the amount of solid waste produced." Therefore, countries in the Global North, which are more economically developed and urbanized, produce more solid waste than Global South countries.

Current international trade flows of waste follow a pattern of waste being produced in the Global North and being exported to and disposed of in the Global South. Multiple factors affect which countries produce waste and at what magnitude, including geographic location, degree of industrialization, and level of integration into the global economy.

Numerous scholars and researchers have linked the sharp increase in waste trading and the negative impacts of waste trading to the prevalence of neoliberal economic policy. With the major economic transition towards neoliberal economic policy in the 1980s, the shift towards "free-market" policy has facilitated the sharp increase in the global waste trade.

Specifically, developing countries have been targeted by trade liberalization policies to import waste as a means of economic expansion. The guiding neoliberal economic policy argues that the way to be integrated into the global economy is to participate in trade liberalization and exchange in international trade markets. Their claim is that smaller countries, with less infrastructure, less wealth, and less manufacturing ability, should take in hazardous wastes as a way to increase profits and stimulate their economies.

Current supporters of global waste trade argue that importing waste is an economic transaction which can benefit countries with little to offer the global economy; countries which do not have the production capacity to manufacture high quality products can import waste to stimulate their economy.

Lawrence Summers, former President of Harvard University and Chief Economist of the World Bank, issued a confidential memo arguing for global waste trade in 1991. The memo stated:

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that... I've always thought that countries in Africa are vastly under polluted; their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles... Just between you and me shouldn't the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the Least Developed Countries?"