The disposal of plastic and electronic waste poses a major environmental and health challenge for countries around the world.

For underdeveloped nations like Malaysia, the issue has now become political. In May, Malaysia announced that it would no longer be a dumping ground for plastic waste from the developed world.

Meanwhile, electronic waste disposal is an issue impacting African countries like Ghana. And, all of this poses one big question, are rich countries using underdeveloped nations as waste disposal dumps?

CGTN’s John Gilmore reports.

To discuss:

• Ei Sun Oh is a senior fellow at the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. 
• Kate O’Neill is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management at UC Berkeley.
• Bridget Welsh is an associate professor of political science at John Cabot University.
• Dinyar Godrej is an editor with the New Internationalist.

For more: 

Malaysia is shipping back thousands of tons of illegal plastic waste to its original countries. Take a look at how and why they are fighting against plastic waste. pic.twitter.com/dROqRUkS25

— CGTN America (@cgtnamerica) May 30, 2019

#NSTnation: Sahabat Alam Sekitar Malaysia president Datuk Abdul Malek Yusof, said that if the government wants to seriously venture into plastic waste processing, it must set standard operating procedures and strict enforcement.https://t.co/WR6YCEKehT

— New Straits Times (@NST_Online) June 10, 2019

Malaysia is tired of taking in plastic waste from rich countries pic.twitter.com/8a9dVlp8nt

— Bloomberg Originals (@bbgoriginals) June 4, 2019