It's a bit more complicated than that. Schengen had a lot more effect on the border checks for people than it did on the border checks for goods, which were next to non-existent already.

And at the same time not. Schengen abolished border checks for vehicles passing national borders.

Border checks for goods were not next to non-existent pre-Schengen. They caught a lot of stuff. At least in Sweden.

Those were spot checks at best. The amount of internal goods traffic within the EU is astounding, you're looking at 10 million tons per year.

I actually ran the numbers, napkin style, a while ago. I think an efficient border control was happening, and still could be happening soon, if we were to re-implement it.

I was looking at whether it would be financially prudent for Sweden to start up border checks again to stop the flow of stolen goods out of the country. The conclusion was a clear yes.

I believe it and can you show the numbers?

The amount of intraeuropean libel is truly outrageous. Such things are often presented without much context and comparison to crime inside the particular country and other misdeeds such country allows for. For example we in Poland often read about Scandinavians ruining the fish in Baltic sea by fishing way above their qoutas and getting away with it, without replenishing the fish population. I'm sur Scandinavians could say sth on their defence, but most media don't bother to double check the facts on each side because sensationalism and strengthening stereotypes get more eyeballs.

Did you already forget what my comment was commenting? It was literally just one step away.

Yeah that shit's like "made in China = bad" by now. But I'm not surprised northern countries keep "reporting" on it.

Oh no, we found a dozen servers and power tools in some Polish guy's car, must be stolen, they can't afford to buy them second hand!

Jesus wept.

I can't imagine that borders would prevent this kind of dumps.

The difference is that when the borders were still up illegal goods movements were detected more frequently, but most of this waste movement is and was perfectly legal under EU single market rules. The 'four freedoms' explicitly spell this out.

This brings up the whole Multi-speed Europe thing:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-speed_Europe

Regardless, anyway you view it, these dumpings are a failure of the particular way the current EU has been implemented. There were other options.