Another door has closed for Western nations hoping to dump their trash overseas. Maybe it's time for another model?

It has been just over a year since China banned imports of foreign plastic waste, and now India has followed in its footsteps. Effective March 1, all imports of foreign solid plastic waste and scrap have been banned. The move is meant to "close the gap between waste generation and recycling capacity," and to help keep the country on track for its goal to phase out all single-use plastics by 2020. India produces nearly 26,000 tons of plastic waste daily and an estimated 40 percent of that remains uncollected, due to inadequate recycling facilities, so it makes sense that the country hardly needs more inputs.

There were already some prohibitions in place, limiting plastic imports to companies in Special Economic Zones (SEZs), while allowing certain businesses to procure resources from abroad. But as the Economic Times reported, "The provision of partial ban was misused by many companies on the pretext of being in an SEZ."

India had begun taking in greater quantities of plastic following China's ban, but now that will shift to other, less regulated countries in southeast Asia, including Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia. All of these have experienced a drastic increase in plastics imports in the past year. The Independent said that Malaysia is now receiving three times the trash it used to, Vietnam's imports have increased by 50 percent, and the amount of Thailand has gone up fifty-fold.