'Pakistan becomes dumping ground for plastic waste'.

LAHORE -- While countries across the globe are banning imports of plastic scrap, Pakistan's laxed regulations have turned it into a dumping ground for such hazardous waste shipments that are also non-compliant with Basel Convention requirements.

Industry data shows that in January 2018, China had put into effect an import ban on waste plastics as part of its efforts to clean the environment and improve health of people. Prior to this ban, China had been handling nearly half of the world's recyclable waste for 25 years. Since then, other Asian countries like India, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia have also either totally banned plastic scrap imports or introduced new restrictions to avoid an environmental catastrophe.

However, despite being a signatory to the Basel Convention, Pakistan is still relying on a lenient regulatory framework and the imports of contaminated plastic waste have increased phenomenally in recent years with the exit of China from the global plastic waste trade. Between January 2019 and April this year, around 65,000 metric tons of plastic waste has been dumped in Pakistan from all around the world.

In 2018...