PLASTIC waste from British supermarkets and council recycling departments has made its way to a dump site in Ipoh, revealed a BBC documentary team.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his co-host, Anita Rani, discovered that “mountains” of plastics from Britain were simply dumped or burned in Malaysia, reported The Mirror.

The duo host a new documentary investigating where UK waste goes, and whether it is being properly recycled.

The environmental catastrophe “has the fingerprints of British supermarkets and council recycling departments” all over it, said the report.

“It’s like some dystopian nightmare… a plastic planet,” Fearnley-Whittingstall, who is also a celebrity chef, was quoted as saying.

Spotted among the waste in Ipoh are British local authority-branded recycling bags, the contents of which should have been recycled in the UK itself.

“When we put this in our recycling bin back in the UK, we think we’re doing the right thing,” said Fearnley-Whittingstall.

“I do my recycling, and I feel good about it. At least I used to. I don’t feel so good now. I feel embarrassed, I feel ashamed, I feel angry, I feel I’ve been lied to.”

In the BBC documentary, he is seen pulling out plastic bags and packaging by M&S, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose.

Malaysia takes in a large amount of British plastic waste – 130,000 tonnes last year. The same year, a total of 665,000 tonnes were exported by the UK.

The three-part BBC documentary will air on June 10. – May 27, 2019.