December 21, 2020
Share The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and Their Disposal (the Basel Convention or Convention), which entered into force in 1992, is a multilateral agreement governing the transboundary movement of hazardous waste and certain other wastes. The Convention generally requires that private parties seeking to ship certain kinds of wastes receive consent from the governments of the exporting and importing countries as well as any countries of transit. The Convention was amended in 2019 to expand the type of plastic wastes subject to these requirements, effective January 1, 2021. These amendments will substantially change transboundary shipments of plastic waste and the waste and recycling industries overall. Barring a permissible separate agreement, nonparties to the Convention, which includes the United States and a handful of other countries, will not be allowed to ship regulated plastic was