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Industrialized countries generate an enormous volume of toxic waste, which is either impossible or extremely costly to recycle. The solution for many years has been to export it to third world countries who have more lenient environmental regulations, are in greater need of funds and where concern for the health of the population is minimum or non-existent. Following several waste trafficking related scandals in the 1980’s, on March 22, 1989, the Basel Convention was adopted, with the goal of controlling movement and disposal of all kinds of toxic and hazardous waste.
Initially the Convention -in force as of May 5, 1992- was criticized by environmental groups because it failed to effectively ban toxic waste exports to poor countries, succeeding only in excluding Antarctica as a destination for such waste. In 1995, however, and as a result of pressure exerted by several countries and environmental groups, an amendment to the Convention was introduced, prohibiting all exports of contaminating material. This ban will only enter into force when the amendment is ratified by 62 of the countries party to the Convention (as of May 2003, 36 countries had already done so). In any event, the scope of the Convention is severely limited by the fact that the United States, the largest toxic residue producer in the world, is not among the signatories.
The prohibition on toxic waste exports involves reducing toxic waste generation to a minimum and ensuring that the disposal of any waste produced is done in an environmentally sound way, and as near as possible to the source of generation. The aim of banning waste producing countries from exporting their waste to developing countries, for low-cost recovery, recycling or disposal purposes, is to stimulate these countries to produce clean technologies. Industrialized countries produce nearly 80% of the 400 million generated annually in the world, and they export 10% of that proportion, for the most part to underdeveloped countries in dire economic straits. For years, Latin America -and in particular southern countries like Paraguay or Argentina- was used by industrialized countries as a garbage dump, leading some of these countries to be among the most active promoters of ratification. Notwithstanding which, bilateral treaties excluded from the Convention have enabled violations of its provisions, such as the intention to import Australian nuclear waste to Argentina, allegedly for treatment and removal.
In spite of the restrictions imposed by environmental groups regarding toxic waste destination, not only has the volume of residues generated not gone down, over the last few years it has gone up, and this increase has not been accompanied by the implementation of effective waste recycling or resource conservation techniques.
In May 2003, more than 100 countries have agreed to fund a first batch of 15 projects ranging from preventing illegal shipments of dangerous material to improving the operation of landfills, as part of a new 10-year strategic plan of the Basel Convention.
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Biotechnology and biosafety
The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety entered into force on 11 September 2003, after reaching 50 ratifications.
Rio+10: Earth Summit 2002
Ten years after Rio ’92, is there still an agenda for sustainable development?
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Basel Convention |
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Relevant documents |
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Civil society |
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United Nations |
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General information on toxic waste |
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Campaigns |
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European Union |
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Maritime organizations |
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Articles and reports |
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Toxic Waste exports from USA to Brazil
Source: New Internationalist
In spite of the Basel Convention, toxic products find their way to developing countries, causing pollution and health problems.
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Waste burning is not renewable energy
Source: Third World Network
Gopal Krishna
After the Doha round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations, trade and environment are being looked at simultaneously. But trade in environmental goods and services, which are under negotiation, is worrisome since besides other inherent inequities built into the framework, it is pushing incinerator technologies in the list of environmental goods and services. November 2004.
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Pushing polluting technologies to the South
Source: Third World Network Features
Llewellyn Leonard
Rejected in their homelands, incinerator vendors in the North are pushing their deadly wares into developing countries, where health and environmental regulations are lax. The US government has even facilitated exports of incinerators under the guise of 'technology transfers' and 'environmental exchanges'. July 2003.
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Mobile toxic waste invades developing countries
Source: Basel Action Network
Non-working cell-phone wastes are expected to follow the path of other e-wastes around the world, which are exported, often illegally and in contravention of the Basel Convention, to developing countries, where the processing of the hazardous wastes is having an immediate and profound impact on entire regions and its peoples. (PDF document). May 2005.
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Toxic tech: pulling the plug on dirty electronics
Source: Greenpeace International
The world’s booming consumption of electronic and electrical goods has created a corresponding explosion in electronic scrap containing toxic, persistent chemicals and heavy metals. Many are routinely, and often illegally, shipped as waste from Europe, US and Japan to Asia because it is cheaper and easier to dump the problem on poor countries that have low environmental standards than to tackle it at home. PDF document. May 2005.
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The digital dump: exporting re-use and abuse to Africa
Source: Basel Action Network
The electronics and information technology industry is the world’s largest and fastest growing manufacturing industry. As a consequence of this remarkable growth, combined with the phenomenon of rapid product obsolescence, discarded electronic equipment, or e-waste, is now recognized as the fastest growing waste stream in the industrialized world. This report reveals that large quantities of used electronic equipment exported from USA and Europe to Lagos, Nigeria for “re-use and repair” are ending up gathering dust in warehouses or being dumped and burned creating serious health and environmental contamination from the toxic leachate and smoke. January 2006.
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Dismantling end-of-life ships requires global answers
Source: IPS
The Clemenceau, a former French military aircraft carrier, which contains some 100 tonnes of the cancer-provoking asbestos, was supposed to be broken down at a naval yard in Alang, in the western Indian state of Gujarat. From Jan. 1 to Feb. 15, the ship was towed from the French port of Toulon to the Indian Ocean, and was expected to be docked in Alang by late February. June 2006.
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Welcome to the world of hazardous waste inventories
Source: IRC Americas Program
Talli Nauman
Without striking even a single chord of “Pomp and Circumstance,” Mexico graduated this month to become part of the world that guarantees public information about hazardous releases from industrial sites. More than a decade of campaigns by citizen groups supported by multilateral agencies and media harangues was necessary to reach this point. August 2006.
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One more failed US environmental policy
Source: IRC
The Stockholm Convention bans persistent organic pollutants (POPs). These toxic substances are transported across the globe, persist in the environment, accumulate in the body fat of humans and animals, and concentrate up the food chain. The POPs treaty has been in force for two years. Even though the United States has banned these chemicals domestically, it refuses to adopt the treaty. And, contrary to the Rotterdam Convention, the United States continues to export millions of pounds of dangerous chemicals every year. September 2006.
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Free trade cannot include toxic waste
Source: Greenpeace South Asia
Environmental organizations condemned the Japanese government for conducting an aggressive campaign aimed at reversing international laws that currently strictly control and prohibit the export of hazardous waste. They presented new evidence that Japan is aggressively pursuing a retrograde strategy designed to make full use of its economic clout through deals in so-called bilateral "economic partnership agreements" (EPAs) in order to re open the region to toxic waste trafficking. Februrary 2007.
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