BEYOND BORDERS: THE IMPACT OF INTERNATIONAL TRADE ON LAND-BASED PLASTIC WASTE IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES — A PANEL DATA ANALYSIS WITH EVIDENCE FROM PAKISTAN (2010–2025)

Abstract

International trade and economic globalization are growing at an unprecedented speed, putting more stress on the environment in developing economies, especially in the case of the generation of plastic waste on land. In this study, it is intended to explore the effect of international trade on the accumulation of plastic waste in developing economies, using evidence from Pakistan for the period 2010-2025. The authors also look at the effect of plastic imports, industrialization, urbanization, environmental regulation, and GDP per capita on environmental degradation related to plastic waste generation. The study is, on the one hand, topical due to the interconnection of globalization and environmental issues, and on the other hand, it falls within a discussion on the environmental impacts of trade liberalization in emerging economies. A quantitative research design is used, and the data is balanced panel data from the developing economies from 2010 to 2025. The data used in this study were secondary and sourced from internationally recognised databases such as the World Bank, as well as reports on environmental sustainability. Panel regression analysis was used to estimate the relationship between international trade and land-based plastic waste generation. Besides, descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation, variance inflation factor (VIF), heteroskedasticity test, and autocorrelation diagnostic were also performed to make sure that the empirical model is robust and reliable. Empirical evidence shows that international trade exerts a significant impact on land-based plastic waste in developing economies. There are positive and statistically significant relationships between plastic waste accumulation and trade openness, plastic imports, industrialization, urbanization, and GDP per capita. On the other hand, environmental regulation has a strong negative effect, which means that robust institutional and regulatory measures reduce the negative environmental impact. The regression model is good in terms of the variation accounted for, being 60.2% of the dispersion in plastic waste generation. The results of the study present key theoretical and practical policy implications for environmental agencies, international trade regulators, and policymakers. The results indicate that environmental externalities of trade liberalization in developing economies can be mitigated through better environmental governance, linking plastic imports with environmental conditionality, promoting sustainable industrialization, and investing in recycling facilities. The study has one weakness, in that secondary macroeconomic data was used, and that behavioural and technological issues that affect waste management practices were not incorporated. This study offers new empirical findings on the linkages between international trade and onshore plastic waste production in developing economies, and offers policy suggestions for sustainable trade governance, complementing the literature on environmental sustainability that only focuses on carbon emissions