Chinese police have arrested 11 people suspected of smuggling foreign plastic waste weeks after Beijing banned the importation of such material to reduce pollution at home.
The detentions appear to show that the ban has prompted a surge in blackmarket trading.
More than 100 tonnes of plastic rubbish and rubber tyres were seized after they were smuggled in from Vietnam, according to the state-run China News.
China has been buying the world’s plastic waste since the 1990s and turning it into raw material for plastic products. In 2012 it received 56 per cent of global exports by weight, almost nine million tonnes, according to the International Solid Waste Association.
Beijing banned the importation of plastic waste on January 1. Such waste has contaminated China’s main rivers, which are now among the main sources of plastic pollution in the oceans. Environmentalists say that minute plastic particles that do not decompose threaten marine life.
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A documentary entitled Plastic China showed women and children in rural areas picking through plastic waste from around the world to make a living.
Those arrested turned waste plastic into products such as woven bags to sell.
Two ringleaders, identified by their surnames of Ma and Zhou, allegedly smuggled the material over the China-Vietnam border. It then went to provinces such as Guangdong, known for decades as the factory of the world.