The thesis aims at providing a viable scheme that understand and describe international waste trade in three stages. It links together theoretical background proposed by (1) ecosocialism, namely work John O'Connor, (2) World system theory and (3) state - capital nexus by van Apeldoorn, in order to provide a structured theoretical base for further research. To illustrate the scheme, there is a case study called Trafigura 2006 at the end of the thesis. Purpose of the case study is to go through three stages of the scheme and suggest an example of motivation, logic, status of actors involved and impacts of international waste trade.