Rotterdam District Court convicts multiple individuals of illegal trade in plastic waste from the Netherlands

The NL Times, the AD, local news sources, and the Dutch Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate (ILT) reported the criminal convictions of four individuals and three companies for illegal trade in plastic waste, one of which was also charged with money laundering. These convictions were all part of the same court ruling in which a man from Uithoorn was found guilty of illegally exporting 18 containers full of contaminated plastic waste to Thailand, Nigeria, and Turkey between 2018 and 2019. The man, his wife, and several business partners were found guilty of complicity in this environmental crime. The combined sentence consisted of several hundred hours of community service and fines totalling approximately €110,000, in addition to the confiscation of €141,000 in profits determined by the authorities in this illegal trade case.

The investigation was launched by the ILT after receiving a report concerning the man. As the ILT highlighted, this is yet another example of what takes place in the shadows of the international plastic waste market. This case followed the modus operandi we described in our earlier article: shipments of mislabelled and contaminated plastic waste, the lack of permits held by the exporters, and clearly illicit shipments without the consent of the authorities in the countries involved. Many other cases – such as the Malaysia case, where the country is inundated with illegal shipments from the US – are currently attracting public attention.

Interestingly, the industry partners we spoke to for our broader research on plastic waste shipments made contradictory statements. They unanimously claimed never to have heard of plastic waste smuggling and insisted that such things do not occur in the Netherlands. One interviewee even claimed that the illegal trade in plastic waste is a fabrication created by the news media and the environmental NGO lobby, who allegedly concocted fake scenarios in which Dutch/European plastic waste was mismanaged in Southeast Asia, Turkey, and Africa. In contrast, other interviewees – namely two activists based in non-European countries receiving Dutch plastic waste – stated that they had received serious personal threats aimed at silencing them.

This contradiction highlights the complex nature of the illegal plastic waste trade and calls for in-depth investigation into the opaque sector of the plastic waste trade.