For over two decades, many developed countries have sent massive amounts of plastic wastes to China for recycling.

But that option is drying up following a Chinese ban on rubbish imports this year, forcing countries, particularly developed nations, to seriously rethink how to process their unwanted materials - a question that have been dodged for many years.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) is eyeing to take legal action against the “importers” of purportedly recyclable materials, which turned out to be mixed garbage containing hazardous wastes from South Korea.

The European Commission has published a notice to stakeholders that states all exports of waste for disposal and the export of mixed municipal waste for recovery from the EU-27 to the UK will be prohibited if the UK exits the EU with “no deal”.