"Southeast Asia stands to gain the most from the addition of plastic waste to the Basel Convention in 2019. All 10 ASEAN member states are signatories to the Basel Convention, a treaty that controls the movement of hazardous waste from one country to another. A major global environmental problem, plastic waste pollution has reached catastrophic proportions with an estimated 100 million tonnes of plastic now found in the oceans, 80-90 percent of which comes from land-based sources, according to the Basel Convention website. This problem is especially acute in ASEAN, which has seen imports of waste plastic from wealthier nations to the region – particularly Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand – rise sharply following a Chinese ban on waste imports at the start of 2018. Data from the United States (US) Census Bureau shows that nearly half the plastic waste exported from the US for recycling in the first six months of 2018 was shipped to Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam. The contaminated and mixed plastic waste is difficult or even impossible to recycle, leading to a large amount of it ending up in rivers and oceans – or incinerated. The proposed amendment to the Basel Convention provides countries with the right to refuse unwanted or unmanageable plastic waste, and it is a move which will better regulate the global trade in plastic waste, make it more transparent and ensure that its management is safer for humans and the environment..."