Michikazu Kojima

Lessons learned from illegal transboundary movement of hazardous waste in Asia

Little is known about the volume of international recycling in Asia, the problems caused and the struggle to properly manage the trade. This pathbreaking book addresses this gap in the literature, and provides a comprehensive overview of the international trade flow of recyclable waste in Asia and related issues.

Environmental Issues in Southeast Asia

This region has continued to experience economic growth since the 1980s, driven by the expansion of direct investment from other countries. However, this growth has also brought with it a host of environmental issues, including deforestation, air pollution, and water pollution. This chapter provides an overview of the economic status, environmental regulations, and other aspects of Southeast Asia, which require a coordinated response amid economic integration, including those that encompass several countries, such as cross-border air pollution. It discusses the initiatives that have been implemented so far and examines the remaining challenges of dealing with regional-level environmental issues.

Should the trade of hazardous waste be uniformly regulated? An empirical analysis of export demand for ‘waste and scrap’

We examine the substitutability of waste and scrap exported from different countries by estimating the export demand functions of China. In particular, we focus on the export of other ferrous waste and scrap (HS code 720449) and other waste, parings and scrap of plastics (HS code 391590). It is shown that the substitutability of these wastes and scraps is weak among the exporting countries. Our empirical results imply that a uniform ban on trading hazardous waste, represented by the Basel Ban, could be an inefficient environmental policy.