Exporting Circularity, Importing Waste?

Photo on Unsplash

Denmark is one of the leading nations in advancing the circular economy, with its strong domestic policies that encourage society and businesses to adopt circular economy principles. The country has gone one step further by exporting circularity through international development partnerships with other countries to reduce waste and address climate change. These partnerships reveal not to be just a national interest of Denmark but of countries with waste issues of their own. However, while Denmark exports circularity abroad, it also imports waste to keep its incinerators running. This highlights a structural contradiction in Denmark’s waste strategy, where circularity in one country means externalised risks in another country.

Denmark: A Circular Economy Exporter

Denmark’s foreign policy documents highlight the country’s development cooperation with developing countries. By exporting Danish technologies, funds and scientific knowledge to developing countries, this will ease the development and implementation of a circular economy and more effectively address environmental issues.

An example is its partnership with Indonesia. In 2018, Denmark and Indonesia established the Strategic Sector Cooperation (SSC) to address Indonesia’s waste management challenges. By 2020, both countries had entered a bilateral agreement with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to accelerate circular economy implementation in Indonesia. Danish policymakers provided advice on Indonesia’s Jaktranas policy and guidelines for organic waste management.

Indonesian local governments worked with Danish agencies to build waste-to-energy plants in cities like Semarang and DKI Jakarta. These projects were funded through the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA). In DKI Jakarta, both countries collaborated on the creation of a Waste Power Plant (PLTSa) at TPST Bantargebang, using a thermal system to reduce waste and generate electricity.

Denmark supports green growth initiatives in African nations such as Morocco and Kenya and other Asian nations like Singapore. Overall, these examples show that Denmark frames its partnerships as inclusive, emphasising shared responsibility for climate challenges. Denmark successfully exports circularity while also importing waste.

Denmark: An Importer of Waste

Because Denmark recycles much of its domestic waste, its incinerators lack sufficient national supply. Plants like Amager Bakke, a waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen, rely on imported waste, particularly plastics, to remain operational. It has an efficient waste management model by generating energy from burning waste, with almost 600,000 tons of annually processed waste. The country’s waste-to energy plants can burn over 4 million tons of waste per year across 26 plants, however, just Amager Bakke’s capacity exceeds the amount of local waste.

This reliance on imported waste also reveals that burning imported waste releases CO2 emissions. This enters in conflicts with Denmark’s climate goals, such as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Danish national association of municipalities (KL), Denmark intends to reduce incineration capacity by 30% by 2030, lowering approved capacity from 3.95 million tons to 2.77 million tons. Plants that do not meet environmental requirements for incinerators will either have to invest in improved technology or close.

Denmark imports hazardous waste because it has the technology to deal with it. However, the country has faced challenges in handling such waste. In 2024, a landslide near Randers involving contaminated industrial soil revealed problems in tracking, storage, safety, and legal enforcement. Even in a country with strong regulations, hazardous waste can create challenges requiring the need for stronger control over industrial waste management.

Where Waste and Risks Externalise via Trade

Denmark’s reliance on imports reflects a broader global pattern where waste often moves across boarders, sometimes with unintended consequences. As waste is often exported to countries with weak environmental regulations, with exporters justifying it for recycling or reuse purposes.

In 2018, China placed limits on plastic waste imports, causing the global trade of plastic waste to adjust to changes in the market and the new regulations around the world. For decades, China was the largest importer of plastic wastes. But after policy change, exporters looked for new destinations and this led to a growth in illegal waste imports, with shipments being redirected to developing countries with weaker environmental regulations. There were missing product information in shipping documents, with plastic waste mixtures being fraudulently declared as non-hazardous waste, overwhelming local waste management systems.

Fast fashion created another form of waste externalisation. Low-quality second-hand textiles from the US, European Union, and China are exported to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Although these textiles are meant to be reused, much of these textiles are of low-quality, ending up in landfills. In 2022, Kenya imported ten times more second-hand textiles from China than from the EU. For countries with poor waste management systems and less compliant environmental rules, the import of these textiles has created significant challenges that importing countries deal with by themselves.

What is more is that the Chinese waste import ban led to a redirection of waste towards Europe. Countries with high disposal costs export to countries with low landfilling fees, meaning an increase of plastic waste exports. Turkey, for example, has become a major destination for waste exporting countries due to low landfill costs, receiving much of the waste. This shows that countries that recycle nationally are also exporting their waste problems abroad, leaving poorer countries to deal with the risks involved in the trade of waste.

The Basel Convention

These risks gave way for international intervention to regulate waste flows, most notably through the Basel Convention. The Convention was adopted in 1989 to prevent the illegal movement of hazardous waste, and to protect the environment and human health. It was created as a response to industrialised countries disposing of their toxic waste in developing countries between the 1970s and 80s.

The Basel Convention’s regulatory system requires exporters to notify and obtain consent from importing and transit countries before the controlled waste is shipped. The goal is to prevent waste from being dumped in countries that cannot safely manage the wastes and ensure that they can manage them properly and safely.

In 2021, the Basel Convention plastic waste was amended to expand its control to more types of plastic waste via international obligations on waste minimisation. Developed countries are now forbidden from exporting specific plastic wastes defined as hazardous to non-parties of the Basel Convention. This was a significant step in closing loopholes that once allowed hazardous wastes to be shipped under the pretence of recycling.

However, rules can only be as strong as enforcement is obeyed. Waste shipments are often mislabelled, with hazardous plastic declared as non-hazardous, or as types not covered by the Basel Convention. Thus, the wastes are successfully sent to developing countries. To address this, transparency measures have been created.

· Transparency Measures

Exporters must provide detailed documentation for shipments of controlled waste, and even Green-Listed-Waste (GLW) shipments require the exporter and disposer to sign a contract (Jokinen et al., 2020). Shipments must go through visual inspection, nonintrusive inspection, like X-ray scanning, to detect fraudulent declarations and contamination.

Denmark has created the National Waste Data System (NWDS) that requires exporters of green-listed waste (GLW) to report their shipments, increasing oversight that goes above the minimum requirements of the EU Waste Shipment Regulation. The EU’s new Waste Shipment Regulation, effective in 2027, will require exporters to prove that exported waste is treated in audited facilities. This is a major victory toward transparent supply chain traceability.

· Take-Back-Obligations

Another mechanism is take-back obligations. ensure that. Under the Basel Convention, if waste is illegally shipped or mismanaged, the exporting country has the responsibility to take it back.

Such a requirement has been implemented between the exporter and the importer through a contract that specifies the Environmentally Sound Management (ESM) of the waste and a take-back obligation should the waste be mismanaged upon arrival in the country or if there is any illegal waste trafficking. For example, a case of mixed plastic waste shipment in Sri Lanka was successfully sent back to the United Kingdom. Take-back-obligations ensure that exporters’ responsibility does not just end once the waste leaves their borders.

Finally, Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) systems push accountability on producers. Although EPRs are nationally regulated, they align with the Convention’s principles by making producers responsible for the end-of-life management of products and all related costs. In Chile, EPR for packaging requires registered and certified waste pickers and mandates Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs) to offer them contracts for waste collection and recovery.

The Curious Case of Denmark

Denmark is known for its efficient recycling systems, with Dansk Retursystem operating a nationwide deposit-return system where citizens exchange bottles and cans through reverse vending machines to reclaim their deposit.

Beyond household recycling, Denmark shows capacity in dealing with hazardous waste responsibly in more complex sectors such as the ship recycling industry. Fornæs Ship Recycling, one of the country’s largest yards, has the approvals to manage toxic waste from ships, ensuring that metals are recycled and other separated waste is safely destroyed or deposited.

This domestic expertise shows Denmark’s international development partnerships that aim to increase the environmental standards of developing countries. But despite the Danish support, Indonesia’s circular economy policies remain fragmented and inconsistently implemented, and the country has not been able to successfully tackle its waste problems. This shows that exporting circularity is not enough, but local governance must fortify itself to handle such challenges.

However, Denmark is not immune from hazardous waste challenges, risks that are far more severe in countries with weak waste management systems. The Basel Convention is crucial for the global enforcement of its principles by exporting countries. Denmark is a circular economy leader, it has the vision when exporting solutions, but its leadership suffers from certain risks which must be properly addressed. Future leadership may depend on advancing regenerative approaches beyond incineration.