Ecuador became an importer of garbage: the country received 15.000 tons of waste from the United States in two years

Despite the pandemic, shipments with waste have increased and made Ecuador one of the largest recipients of plastic waste in Latin America.

Since 2020, several environmental organizations have warned about the increase in garbage exports to several countries, including Ecuador. The Last Beach Cleanup, an independent initiative that seeks to reduce plastic pollution, warned that more than 1.1 million kilos (1.100 tons) of this type of waste had been sent to Ecuador. That meant shipping seven containers a day or 210 containers in a single month.

14.988 tons of this waste arrived in Ecuador from the United States, that is equal to 555 dump trucks full of waste, in the last two years.

According to several journalistic investigations, the United States sent millions of tons of garbage, mainly to developing countries with bad environmental regulations. Most of these wastes were contaminated with food or soil, or were not recyclable and had to be disposed of again in the destination country.

In the same way, it is revealed that Ecuador has brought plastic waste from 37 countries, but mainly from the United States, from where 36% of these materials have arrived.

These data warn that large amounts of dirty plastic waste are entering the country and mixed with other products or other types of plastics, especially those that come from the United States.

Those figures made Ecuador the third largest recipient of plastic waste from the United States in Latin America, only behind Mexico and El Salvador.

The movements of these wastes were maintained, despite the pandemic. In the first eight months of 2020, only in April there were no exports to Ecuador. Starting in May, they began to grow and in just three months shipments exceeded the levels registered before the pandemic: from 835.541 kilos in February to 1’059.766 kilos in August.