KUALA LUMPUR: Plastic waste from Britain intended for recycling had been found dumped at a wasteland near Ipoh.
A British daily quoted a report by BBC, which featured British TV presenter Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall discovering a 6m-high mound of plastic waste deep in the jungle of Perak.
Daily Mail Online reported that the environmental catastrophe “has the fingerprints of British supermarkets and council recycling departments” all over it.
“It’s like some dystopian nightmare… a plastic planet,” Fearnley-Whittingstall, who is also a celebrity chef, was quoted as saying.
According to the same report, Fearnley-Whittingstall also spotted British local authority-branded recycling bags, which suggested that householders dutifully filling their green bins in the belief they were helping the environment had been lied to.
“When we put this in our recycling bin back in the United Kingdom, we think we’re doing the right thing. I do my recycling and I feel good about it. At least I used to. I don’t feel so good now. I feel embarrassed, I feel ashamed, I feel angry, I feel I’ve been lied to,” he said.
Fearnley-Whittingstall pulled out plastic bags and packaging from M&S, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose.
Daily Mail Online reported that among the tonnes of supermarket waste were local council recycling bags, split or torn, suggesting that they were used for their intended purpose by well-meaning Britons.
Last year, 665,000 tonnes of plastic waste were exported by the UK. Until 2018, China was the biggest recipient. However, the Chinese government recently imposed a ban on the export.
Malaysia now takes in a large amount of plastic waste from the British. The country took in 130,000 tonnes last year.
The report will be shown in a three-part BBC documentary co-hosted by Fearnley-Whittingstall and Countryfile’s Anita Rani on June 10.