Transnational recycling of Australian export waste: An exploratory study

Abstract

Transnational recycling of waste is a common phenomenon and can have significant environmental and economic impacts on both exporting and importing countries. However, current studies mainly focused on the management of transnational waste recycling in waste-importing countries, and less attention has been paid to issues related to waste-exporting countries. Using Australian export waste data as an example, combining geospatial analysis methods, this study innovatively analyzes the transnational recycling of waste from the perspective of waste exporting countries. The results show that exported waste, assumed to be recycled in the Australian waste statistics, is not fully recycled by waste-importing countries. This study also combines regression analysis to identify factors associated with the destination of waste exports. The results indicate that there is no statistically significant relationship between environmental factors and the location of the destination when exporting waste. Besides, due to the lack of data, waste-exporting countries do not understand the fate of their exported waste and therefore cannot make choices based on the associated environmental impacts. It is recommended that waste-exporting and -importing countries work together to track data so that environmental impacts of exported waste can be better understood.