Mongabay Newscast

We all send our recycling somewhere for proper handling, but the operations of one such handling center in Poland makes one ask, is it being done right, or at all?  The European Commission estimates that the illegal handling of such waste represents around 15-30% of the total EU waste trade, generating EUR 9.5 billion in annual revenues. So in part 3 of our investigative podcast series, the team dispatches Outriders journalist Eva Dunal to visit one such recycling facility in the pretty town of Zielona Góra close to the Polish-German border, and finds out just how unpopular it is with the neighbors, and especially the city council. They also speak with Jim Puckett, the 'James Bond of waste trafficking' at Basel Action Network, who reveals that much recycling is being 'laundered' via the Netherlands and shipped on to countries where such resources are often dumped, not recycled. In a three-part, “true eco-crime” series for Mongabay’s podcast, our hosts trace England’s – and Europe's – towering illegal waste pr