Malaysia's E-Waste Ban Needs Sustained Enforcement, BAN Researcher Says

Malaysia's new absolute prohibition on electronic waste imports has brought greater legal clarity to a trade that authorities and environmental groups say has exposed the country to illegal dumping, pollution and waste trafficking.

The Customs (Prohibition of Imports) (Amendment) (No. 3) Order 2026 has prohibited imports of electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) since April 2026. Previously, e-waste was subject to a conditional prohibition that created legal ambiguity. 

The Basel Action Network (BAN), an environmental watchdog that tracks the international hazardous-waste trade, has described Malaysia as the Southeast Asian country hardest hit by illegal e-waste imports in recent years. In an April statement, BAN commended the Malaysian government for taking a tougher approach to illegal waste trafficking through continued raids, container seizures, and corruption investigations.

Pui Yi Wong, a waste trade researcher and campaign advocate at BAN, works with the BAN team to track illegal e-waste shipments mainly from the United States (U.S.) and their environmental and regulatory impacts across Southeast Asia. Through BAN's “Operation Can Opener” project, she has helped monitor suspected e-waste containers moving from the U.S. to the APAC region and has examined how valuable materials are recovered while contaminated plastics and other residual waste are illegally dumped in destination countries.

To assess the early impact of Malaysia's e-waste import ban, 3E spoke with Wong about changes in enforcement and the need for stronger accountability among responsible stakeholders.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What has changed since Malaysia began enforcing the absolute ban?

Based on our recent analysis, the number of containers suspected of carrying e-waste to Malaysia has decreased, although some shipments still appear to continue.

Enforcement agencies have been seizing containers at ports to check whether they were properly declared and whether they contained e-waste or other hazardous waste. Authorities have also raided and inspected e-waste processing facilities.

We are seeing fewer junkyards processing e-waste, so I would say the situation has improved compared with perhaps a year ago. But it remains to be seen whether illegal imports have actually stopped. We need continued monitoring before we can know that for sure.

Why is an absolute prohibition important?

The ban sends a strong message that the Malaysian government is serious about this blatant violation of our laws.

Previously, Malaysia's Department of Environment already had a policy to prohibit e-waste imports. However, under customs rules, e-waste could still be brought in with written permission from the department's director general. As a result, the legal position remained unclear, despite the policy ban.

Now that Malaysia has formally amended the law, exporters can no longer point to that ambiguity. It is very clear that e-waste is not allowed to be sent to Malaysia.

The Basel Convention's E–Waste Amendments also took effect in 2025, making transboundary movements of both hazardous and nonhazardous e-waste subject to prior informed consent by the importing country. Malaysia is a party to the convention, but the U.S. is not. Movements between a party and a non–party are not permitted unless an appropriate agreement exists. This is particularly important because a significant amount of the e-waste we have been tracking came from the U.S.

What problems have imported e-waste caused in Malaysia?

It has caused many different forms of pollution. Illegal factories do not have any environmental pollution controls. We have also seen rampant open burning, open dumping, and piles of electronic plastic scrap that have become too massive and too expensive to clean up.

E-waste contains a wide variety of materials. There may be toxic heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, nickel, and mercury, which could lead to irreversible health effects for workers and neighboring communities, including brain impairment, cancer, birth defects in babies, etc. Plastics in electronics can also contain brominated flame retardants including a banned substance called PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), as well as persistent organic pollutants such as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), which have been linked to immune system damage, endocrine disruption, and also cancer.

When entire computers, printers and other products are crushed and mixed, those plastics and other residues are expensive to separate again for recycling. Some operators therefore dump them illegally.

It is largely a matter of economics. Proper recycling with pollution controls and responsible residual waste disposal legally in a landfill can be costly. Illegal dumping in the environment is free.

Pollution is not the only problem. The hidden costs of pollution is borne by public health and damaged ecosystems while enforcement agencies are overburdened by the illegal activities that also worsen corruption risks. Investigations into waste trafficking crimes involve multiple agencies, while nationwide crackdowns on illegal e-waste factories have involved more than a thousand officers at one time, requiring significant public resources.

Could Malaysia's ban simply push the trade into other Southeast Asian countries?

Yes. Operators will move to wherever they are allowed to operate. We hope that the rest of Southeast Asia will crack down sternly on illegal waste trade and uphold the Basel Convention to prevent waste colonialism by rich countries. There is currently an uproar over e-waste imports in the Philippines. 

China developed considerable expertise in dismantling electronic products and recovering valuable materials. When China restricted solid waste imports, brokers and business operators began looking for other places to establish processing operations.

In Malaysia, many facilities involved collaborations between Malaysian and Chinese parties. The Malaysian partner might own the land, factory, or business license, while the Chinese partner handled international trading, sourced the material, trained workers, and connected the recovered materials with buyers in China.

The problem occurs when whole products are sent to Southeast Asia for processing. The valuable raw materials may then be extracted and exported for further use, while the destination country is left with unwanted low value materials, especially plastics, and resulting in contamination and pollution.

How should authorities distinguish prohibited e-waste from legitimate secondhand electronics or recyclable scrap?

Malaysia still accepts secondhand electrical and electronic equipment intended for direct reuse, repair, or refurbishment. Under the current guidelines, importers must apply for permission from the Department of Environment and provide evidence that the equipment is not simply being sent for disposal. It must still work or be repairable, and be less than five years old. Spot checks and audits must be done on such imports to ensure that non-functioning e-waste is not smuggled into the country through this channel.

The major problem previously observed was false declaration of shipments. Suspected e-waste was declared as copper, aluminum alloy or another type of scrap.

What will be the main enforcement challenge over the coming year?

Enforcement needs to continue even if the number of violations appears to decline.

Malaysia's ports are very busy, and officers are looking for many kinds of contraband, including drugs, cigarettes, weapons, and other illegally traded goods. Waste is only one part of their workload. We hope authorities will continue treating waste crime as seriously as other forms of trafficking.

There would need to be strict enforcement of the law with analysis of trade intelligence and ad-hoc inspections on shipments, thorough investigations that will lead to successful convictions in court with high penalties to act as a deterrent, and continuous crackdown on corruption.

Continuous interagency collaboration and information sharing will be important. Different agencies are responsible for customs, environmental compliance, immigration, and business licensing. There must be legal clarity over which agency is responsible for determining whether e-waste being processed at a facility were legally imported.

An important but largely overlooked aspect of tackling waste crimes is collaboration with civil society and transparency. Communities are the eyes and ears of the government on the ground. Whistleblowing should be encouraged, identities should be protected, and credible public information should be welcomed and acted upon.

What responsibilities do companies have for preventing their discarded electronics from entering illegal trade?

Companies need to know where their waste is going. They should not consider their responsibility finished once they send it to a certified collector.

They need to follow up, conduct regular audits and make sure the waste is actually reaching facilities where it is recycled in an environmentally sound manner, as stipulated by the Basel Convention. There must be traceability and transparency throughout the end-of-life process.

End–of–life does not mean sending something to a collection center. Companies should be able to trace the material until it has been processed into secondary materials.

This concern applies to extended producer responsibility (EPR) programmes in developed countries. The system may increase waste collection, but if that waste is then sent to another country without adequate oversight, it would defeat the objectives of the program.

If proper waste treatment involves additional costs, companies have to internalise those costs rather than trying to externalise them to vulnerable communities. Economic growth and profits must not be prioritised over workers, community health, and the environment any longer.