Malaysia will send as much as 3,000 tons of plastic waste back to the countries it came from, the environment minister said on Tuesday, the latest Asian country to reject rich countries' rubbish.

Dozens of recycling factories have cropped up in Malaysia, many without operating licenses, and communities have complained of environmental problems.

Yeo Bee Yin, minister of energy, technology, science, environment and climate change, said 60 containers of trash that had been imported illegally would be sent back.

"These containers were illegally brought into the country under false declaration and other offences which clearly violates our environmental law," Yeo told reporters, after inspecting the shipments at Port Klang, on the outskirts of the capital.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte last week ordered his government to hire a private shipping company to send 69 containers of garbage back to Canada and leave them within its territorial waters if it refuses to accept them.

Canada says the waste, exported to the Philippines between 2013 and 2014, was a commercial transaction done without government consent.

Canada had agreed to take the rubbish back but Duterte lost patience as arrangements were being made and ordered it out.

Malaysian officials have identified at least 14 origin countries, including the United States, Japan, France, Canada, Australia and Britain, for its unwanted waste.

Yeo said citizens of developed nations were largely unaware that their rubbish, which they think is being recycled, is instead mostly being dumped in Malaysia, where it is disposed of using environmentally harmful methods.

A recycling company based in Britain had exported as much as 50,000 tons of plastic waste to Malaysia in the past two years, she said, without identifying the firm. Yeo said Malaysia would ask foreign governments to investigate such companies.