Into the Wasteland, 3: Buried in Europe's Recycling
We all send our recycling somewhere for proper handling, but the operations of one such handling center in Poland makes one ask, is it being done right, or at all?\xa0
The European Commission estimates that the illegal handling of such waste represents around 15-30% of the total EU waste trade, generating EUR 9.5 billion in annual revenues.
So in part 3 of our investigative podcast series, the team dispatches Outriders journalist Eva Dunal to visit one such recycling facility in the pretty town of Zielona G\xf3ra close to the Polish-German border, and finds out just how unpopular it is with the neighbors, and especially the city council. They also speak with Jim Puckett, the 'James Bond of waste trafficking' at Basel Action Network, who reveals that much recycling is being 'laundered' via the Netherlands and shipped on to countries where such resources are often dumped, not recycled.
In a three-part, \u201ctrue eco-crime\u201d series for Mongabay\u2019s podcast, our hosts trace England\u2019s \u2013 and Europe's \u2013 towering illegal waste problem: investigative environmental journalists Lucy Taylor\xa0and\xa0Dan Ashby follow this illegal 'waste trail' from their quiet English town to the nearby countryside and as far away as Poland and Malaysia.
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This episode is "The Wastelands" and is part three of the investigative podcast series, "Into the Wasteland," developed with the support of Journalismfund.eu.
Banner image: The shuttered Eurokey plant in the town of Zielona G\xf3ra. Image by Eva Dunal/Outriders.
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