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Data

Plastic waste trade

by metric and rate
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What you should know about this indicator

  • Data covers plastic waste classified under HS code 3915 ('waste, parings and scrap, of plastics') in UN Comtrade trade statistics. This includes waste from different polymer types such as polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
  • Data includes all transport methods: air, sea, road, rail, inland waterways, and cases where the transport mode was not specified.
  • Data includes re-exports (when a country imports plastic waste and subsequently exports it).
  • This data may not capture all plastic waste trade. Some plastic waste is traded under other codes (such as HS 3825 for refuse-derived fuels), and discrepancies can exist between what exporting and importing countries report.
  • Global plastic waste trade patterns shifted following China's 2018 import ban and the Basel Convention amendments that took effect in 2021, which require prior informed consent for most plastic waste shipments.
Plastic waste exports
The amount of plastic waste a country exports to other countries, measured in tonnes per year.
Source
United Nations Comtrade Database (2025); United Nations Comtrade Database (2023) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
September 25, 2025
Next expected update
September 2026
Date range
1988–2024
Unit
tonnes

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

United Nations Comtrade Database – Comtrade Database

The United Nations Comtrade database aggregates detailed global annual and monthly trade statistics by product and trading partner for use by governments, academia, research institutes, and enterprises. Data compiled by the United Nations Statistics.

Division covers approximately 200 countries and represents more than 99% of the world's merchandise trade. Information can be extracted in a variety of formats, including API developer tools for integration into enterprise applications and workflows.

Retrieved on
September 25, 2025
Retrieved from
https://comtradeplus.un.org/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
United Nations Comtrade Database (2025). comtrade@un.org. Accessed on: 09 Sep 2025.

The United Nations Comtrade database aggregates detailed global annual and monthly trade statistics by product and trading partner for use by governments, academia, research institutes, and enterprises. Data compiled by the United Nations Statistics.

Division covers approximately 200 countries and represents more than 99% of the world's merchandise trade. Information can be extracted in a variety of formats, including API developer tools for integration into enterprise applications and workflows.

Retrieved on
September 25, 2025
Retrieved from
https://comtradeplus.un.org/
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
United Nations Comtrade Database (2025). comtrade@un.org. Accessed on: 09 Sep 2025.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Plastic waste exports”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Veronika Samborska, and Max Roser (2023) - “Plastic Pollution”. Data adapted from United Nations Comtrade Database. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260417-112857/grapher/plastic-waste-trade.html [online resource] (archived on April 17, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

United Nations Comtrade Database (2025); United Nations Comtrade Database (2023) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

United Nations Comtrade Database (2025); United Nations Comtrade Database (2023) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Plastic waste exports” [dataset]. United Nations Comtrade Database, “Comtrade Database” [original data]. Retrieved April 17, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260417-112857/grapher/plastic-waste-trade.html (archived on April 17, 2026).

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