As plastic pollution is considered a potential geological marker of the Anthropocene, some living organisms have evolved and adapted into symbiotic relationships with polymers. The wicked problem of pollution and toxic exposure contributes to waste colonialism, which is inherent to the current state of climate and ecological emergency. From plastics to fungi and back again, this project speculates on the possibilities to decolonise plastic waste with the help of a plastic-decomposing fungus. My research prompts toward anthropo-de-centrism and multispecies storytelling as design methods to develop care for plastic waste. The project draws upon the complexity of fungi-plastics-humans relations and is supported by a transdisciplinary collaborative research focused on fungi cultivation. At the core of this practice, I relate the omnipresence of fungi and plastics to queer ecologies, and as such, I develop my design proposal with generative toxicity as theoretical and creative framework.  To materialise this, I propose a workshop bridging between local communities of designers and self-taught mycologists, in order to change the general opinion on plastic waste by focusing on hosting and care as forms of slow activism. The longer-term aim would be a systemic rebalancing of our permanently polluted world. Queer ecologies could therefore contribute to refine what sustainability means for design today by facilitating multispecies care and decolonising gestures.

Since the 2018 Chinese plastic waste import ban, the global plastic waste trade has been increasingly problematized, especially considering the correlated global environmental issue of marine plastic pollution. Therefore, governance approaches are required to curb marine plastic pollution and regulate the plastic waste trade to prevent situations of “waste dumping” in Global South countries. This thesis will examine the connection between the 2019 changes Basel Convention as a global governance approach and the tendency of Southeast Asian countries to implement import regulations due to an increase in plastic waste exports to the region and resulting environmental concerns.  The empirical context of both plastic problems and the central theoretical concepts of waste distancing and environmental justice associated with a postcolonial, environmental theory approach are discussed in the literature review. The 2019 changes to the Basel Convention will be first examined with a content analysis and then the changing international context resulting in national import regulations will be studied with a process-tracing approach focused on the cases of Malaysia and Thailand. To conclude the Basel Convention provided a regulative framework for certain plastic waste imports and can also be related to the Southeast Asian countries’ response of repatriating illegal imports.