19:38:42 UT - Mercury (7 aq 10'48") quincunx Hades (8 cn 25'28" Rx)
20:46:50 UT - Hades (8 cn 25'28" Rx) conjunct Mean Node (7 cn 10'48" Rx)
00:05:10 UT - Mercury (7 aq 10'48") quincunx Mean Node (7 cn 10'48" Rx)
Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin announced the return of the containers, which had been imported illegally, on Monday. The containers held more than 3,700 tons of plastic waste, and originated from 13 countries. Forty-three came from France, 42 from the UK, 17 from the US, and 11 from Canada.
The cost of returning the containers was paid
by the exporting countries and shipping lines, Yeo said, declaring “we
don’t want to pay a single cent.”
“People dump the rubbish into your country, we are not supposed to pay them to send it back,” she added.
Another 110 containers will be sent back in the near future, she said, 60 of them to the United States.
“[We] will take the necessary steps to ensure that Malaysia does not become the garbage dump of the world,” Yeo stated.
Western
nations shipped their plastic waste to China for processing and
recycling for years, but were forced to look for new destinations in
2018 when the Chinese government banned foreign waste imports.
The
burden has since fallen heavily on southeast Asia, though countries in
the region are also growing tired of cleaning up the West’s messes.
Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia have all returned shipments of
plastic waste to the West in recent months, with Indonesia claiming it
was receiving “contaminated” trash.
Philippines leader Rodrigo Duterte threatened
last May to personally sail across the Pacific with 69 containers worth
of Canadian waste and dump it in Canadian waters. The same month,
Malaysia announced it was returning 450 tons of imported waste to its
source countries.
Source: bbc.com
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