Financial Crime Risks in the Plastic Waste Trade

The global plastic waste trade has become a conduit for financial crime, with criminals and organised crime groups exploiting regulatory loopholes to engage in fraud, bribery and money laundering under the guise of recycling.

Many high-income countries export plastic waste to lower-income nations, citing high domestic processing costs driven by underinvestment in waste management infrastructure. However, weak enforcement capacity in both exporting and recipient countries enables systemic fraud, including misdeclaration of waste, document forgery and abuse of recycling credit schemes. Brokers and intermediaries deliberately obscure supply chains, facilitating tax evasion, bribery and large-scale waste trafficking.