The ban on plastic exports to China has seen the UK offloading its waste to nations with questionable records on marine pollution.

In the four months since the ban came into force waste being exported to Malaysia more than trebled, making it the main destination for British plastics.

Exports to Vietnam increased by 50 per cent, while the amount sent to Thailand shot up fifty-fold.

All three countries have the unfortunate distinction of being in the top 10 for quantity of plastic waste entering the ocean, with Vietnam, the highest-placed of the three, in fourth place.

The ranking comes from a report published in the journal Science in 2015, which provides the best estimates currently available of the quantity of inadequately disposed plastics ending up as marine debris.

Plastic in the world’s oceans has emerged as a major environmental problem in recent months, with scientists and environmentalists highlighting its harmful effects on marine creatures.

Though the UK government has been vocal in its support of measures to reduce plastic usage, much of the waste currently circulating in the world’s oceans is thought to originate in developing countries with less effective waste management infrastructure.

The figures on UK waste exports were revealed in an investigation by Greenpeace, which also found that countries are now beginning to shut their doors to the sudden surge of British waste.

Plastic waste across the world: in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Plastic waste across the world: in pictures Plastic waste across the world: in pictures A father and son on a makeshift boat made from styrofoam paddle through a garbage filled river as they collect plastic bottles that they can sell in junkshops in Manila. The father and son team earn some three US dollars a day retrieving recyclables from the river. AFP/Getty Plastic waste across the world: in pictures A composite image of items found on the shore of the Thames Estuary in Rainham, Kent. Tons of plastic and other waste lines areas along the Thames Estuary shoreline, an important feeding ground for wading birds and other marine wildlife. Getty Images Plastic waste across the world: in pictures Children collect plastic water bottles among the garbage washed ashore at the Manila Bay. According to the United Nations Environment Programme, at current rates of pollution, there will likely be more plastic in the sea than fish by 2050. AFP/Getty Plastic waste across the world: in pictures Plastics and other detritus line the shore of the Thames Estuary. In December 2017 Britain joined the other 193 UN countries and signed up to a resolution to help eliminate marine litter and microplastics in the sea. It is estimated that about eight million metric tons of plastic find their way into the world's oceans every year. Once in the Ocean plastic can take hundreds of years to degrade, all the while breaking down into smaller and smaller 'microplastics,' which can be consumed by marine animals, and find their way into the human food chain. Getty Plastic waste across the world: in pictures A dump site in Manila in 2013. The Philippines financial capital banned disposable plastic shopping bags and styrofoam food containers, as part of escalating efforts across the nation's capital to curb rubbish that exacerbates deadly flooding. AFP/Getty Images Plastic waste across the world: in pictures Children swims in the sea full of garbage in North Jakarta, Indonesia. Getty Plastic waste across the world: in pictures An Indian woman holds a jar filled with Yamuna river water polluted with froth and toxic foam to be used for rituals at the river bank in New Delhi, India. The Yamuna River, like all other holy rivers in India, has been massively polluted for decades now. The river that originates in a glacier in the pristine and unpolluted Himalayas, and flows through Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh before merging with the Ganges River in Allahabad, once used to be the lifeline of the Indian capital. Currently, it is no more than a large, open sewer that is choking with industrial and domestic discharge that includes plastic, flowers and debris and has virtually no aquatic life. EPA Plastic waste across the world: in pictures Plastic waste is washed up on South Troon beach in Scotland. Recent reports by scientists have confirmed, plastics dumped in the world oceans are reaching a dangerous level with micro plastic particles now being found inside filter feeding animals and amongst sand grains on our beaches. Getty Plastic waste across the world: in pictures Children collect plastic to be sold and recycled, in a polluted river in suburban Manila. The city's trash disposal agency traps solid waste floating down waterways that was thrown into the water by residents of slums along riverbanks upstream. AFP/Getty Plastic waste across the world: in pictures View of the Carpayo Beach in La Punta, Callao, some 15 km of Lima. In 2013, the NGO VIDA labeled the Carpayo Beach as the most polluted in the country - 40 tons of trash on each 500m2. AFP/Getty Plastic waste across the world: in pictures Trash from Kamilo Beach in Hawaii. Gabriella Levine/Flickr Plastic waste across the world: in pictures A scavenger collects plastic cups for recycling in a river covered with rubbish near Pluit dam in Jakarta. Reuters Plastic waste across the world: in pictures Rubbish fills Omoa beach in Honduras. Floating masses of garbage offshore from some of the Caribbean's pristine beaches are testimony to a vast and growing problem of plastic pollution heedlessly dumped in our oceans, locals, activists and experts say. AFP/Getty Plastic waste across the world: in pictures A man climbs down to a garbage filled river in Manila. Plastic rubbish will outweigh fish in the oceans by 2050 unless the world takes drastic action to recycle the material, a report warned in 2016. AFP/Getty Plastic waste across the world: in pictures Garbage on East Beach, Henderson Island (Pitcairn Islands), in the south Pacific Ocean. The uninhabited island has been found to have the world's highest density of waste plastic, with more than 3,500 additional pieces of litter washing ashore daily at just one of its beaches. EPA

Along with Poland – another major plastic importer – the south-east Asian nations have all imposed limits on the amount of plastic waste they will import from abroad.

In Poland, a series of fires at dumps led to the country placing new restrictions on the amount of foreign waste coming in.

Polish interior minister Joachim Brudzinski said the China ban had caused an “increase in illegal imports to Poland of materials that should not be in our country”.

Temporary bans have also been brought in across Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia following backlogs of plastic imports at ports.

After China’s announcement that it would no longer accept “foreign garbage”, environment secretary Michael Gove said the country had to “stop offshoring our dirt” and deal with its plastic waste at home.

Since then there has been a drop of 17 per cent in waste being exported, but the vast majority is still being sent abroad.

Simon Ellin, chief executive of the Recycling Association, warned in December that the Chinese ban would be a “game changer for the UK”.

In response to the news about nations blocking imports of waste, Mr Ellin said the sector would continue “lurching from crisis to crisis” until new recycling infrastructure is developed.

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Adam Read, external affairs director at waste firm Suez said: “There is always a risk that other countries start to get flooded and close their doors.

“That’s an inevitability of moving millions of tonnes out of China and dumping it on the global market.

“We don’t know how much material is circling the globe. Everything in the supply chain has changed in the last 12 months. The risk to the UK is that low grade plastic, poorly sorted, contaminated, or degraded, could become hard to place anywhere.”

Labour MP and member of the Environmental Audit Committee, Kerry McCarthy said: “I thought the China ban would bring the government to its senses in demonstrating we could no long rely on exporting our plastic waste.

“But instead the minister… challenged the view of this as a crisis, and left it to the market to find alternative export markets.”

Greenpeace UK ocean plastic campaigner Fiona Nicholls said: “Sweeping our waste under someone else’s carpet is not the solution to Britain’s plastic problem.

“Instead of just moving our plastic scrap around the globe, we should turn off the tap at the source. The industry is churning out single-use plastic at an alarming rate, with global production set to quadruple by 2050 – that’s clearly more than our recycling system can cope with.”