A container from Australia is filled with plastic waste in Port Klang, Malaysia, on May 28, 2019. Malaysia has sent back 150 containers of plastic waste to 13 mainly rich countries since the third quarter last year, Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin said Monday, January 20, 2020.

(AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

At a Glance

China banned imports of plastic waste in 2018.Since then, much of the world's used plastic has wound up in Malaysia.Malaysia has sent 150 containers back to their source countries, including some to the United States.

Saying it won't be the world's dump, Malaysia has sent 150 containers of plastic waste back to a dozen countries.

“If people want to see us as the rubbish dump of the world, you dream on," Environment Minister Yeo Bee Yin told reporters Monday at a port on the country's northwest coast.

Since China banned the import of plastic waste in 2018, The Associated Press reports, Malaysia has become one of the Southeast Asian countries where the shipments wind up.

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Malaysia has undertaken strict enforcement at key Malaysian ports to block smuggling of waste. It has shut down more than 200 illegal plastic recycling factories.

Of the 150 containers, which contained 4,120 tons of plastic waste, 43 were returned to France, 42 to the United Kingdom, 17 to the United States, 11 to Canada, 10 to Spain and the rest to Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Portugal, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Lithuania, according to a tweet by Yeo.

Yeo said the government is in discussions with the countries to take back another 110 containers.

She said the shipping and recycling companies covered the costs of return the plastic.

When China banned plastic waste imports in January 2018, Malaysia became the , the Los Angeles Times reported. The country imported nearly 212,000 tons in the first 10 months of 2018 — a 132% jump from the year before.

In May, 180 countries agreed to amend a U.N. treaty on the trade of plastic waste and its disposal.

The change to the Basel Convention made global trade in plastic waste , Reuters reported.

The United States has never ratified the treaty.