The countries that import the world's plastic waste

Last year, China announced it would stop importing plastic waste, and as a new Analyse shows, this is a huge problem for the rest of the world. From 1988 to 2016, China imported 171 million tonnes of this surprisingly valuable raw material. With a total trade value of $81 billion, this represents 72% of all imported plastic waste during that period.

Despite recent efforts by some governments to reduce consumption, the scale of global Plastic waste vast and will remain so for some time. As long as this does not change, many countries will have to make new plans for their disposal or, alternatively, plans to fill the massive gap in the market that China has left.

Further infographics can be found at Statista