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Indonesian officers examine garbage containers from Australia at the port of Surayaba on July 9, 2019. Antara Foto / Didik Suhartono / via REUTERS

Malaysia announced Monday the return of 150 containers of waste to several countries, including France. More than 3,700 tonnes of illegal plastic waste are affected by this return, a large part of which comes from France and the United Kingdom.

Of the 150 waste containers, 43 come from France, 42 from the United Kingdom, 17 from the United States and eleven from Canada. It is not the first time that Malaysia has redirected several hundred containers to their countries of origin, in the overwhelming majority of cases from developed countries.

Like the Philippines or Indonesia, Kuala Lumpur now systematically returns this illegal waste, household waste, plastics, hazardous materials, including heavy metals, by full cargo, without forgetting to pay exporting countries the cost of transport, shared with shipping companies.

Kuala Lumpur does not want to " pay a single penny "

" Paying a single penny " is out of the question, said Malaysian Environment Minister Ye Bee Yin.

The waste management situation seriously deteriorated in Malaysia and other countries in Southeast Asia, when China decided in 2018 to block the import of the majority of plastic waste, causing the suffocation in neighboring countries which are crumbling under waste, their recycling capacities being much lower than arrivals.

► Also read: What is Europe doing with its waste?