Thailand has outlawed imports of plastic waste as of Jan. 1, 2025.
The Thai Department of Foreign Trade issued the regulation in early December. It was published into law in the Royal Gazette on Dec. 16, 2024.
The regulation allowed for a grace period between Dec. 17 and 31 to allow operators to complete pending imports by the end of the year. Since the beginning of the new year, imports of plastic waste are banned across the Kingdom of Thailand under amendment 39.15 to the country’s Tariff Schedule.
The regulation follows Thailand’s setting of guidelines to regulate the import of plastic scraps for use as raw materials in industrial factories in February 2023. The guidelines also require responsible agencies to promote the recycling of domestic plastic waste under the framework of the BCG (Bio, Circular, Green) economy model.
“The ban on imports will help stimulate plastic recycling in Thailand, ensuring more efficient resource usage and reducing the amount of unused plastic waste,” said Arada Fuangthong, Director-General of the Department of Foreign Trade. “This will also help reduce pollution that could impact the environment and public health.”
Fuangthong added that the amount of plastic waste in Thailand has increased ‘significantly’, and that the country has struggled with smuggling of electronic waste mixed with plastic waste.
Plastic waste exports from Europe to non-OECD countries have increased in the past years. There are rules regulating the worldwide export of plastic scrap, as agreed in an update to the Basel convention, for example, but the extent to which they are complied with at the receiving end is difficult to assess. The rules ban the export of plastic waste from the EU to non-OECD countries, except for clean plastic waste sent for recycling.
From 2026, the EU is planning to also ban the export of non-hazardous plastic waste to non-OECD countries.