TL: PROFILES OF THE "SINISTER SEVEN" - Obstacles to the Basel Ban 
SO: Greenpeace International (GP)
DT: Unknown
Keywords: environment greenpeace toxics agreements conferences /
 
                       Profiles of the 

              T H E   "S I N I S T E R   S E V E N"


AUSTRALIA -- Seems to want to satisfy its industry by keeping the
door open for dumping of toxic waste for recycling in South East
and Southern Asia. Government found to be out of compliance with
the Basel Convention by not regulating recyclable hazardous
wastes. 

CANADA -- One of the most regressive delegations in the Basel
meetings.  Currently exporting "recyclable" toxic waste to Asia. 
Position of new government may offer some hope for relief from
their intransigence because new Environment Minister, as an
opposition MP, had introduced a total hazardous waste trade ban
bill in House of Commons.

FINLAND -- Refuses to close the door for future exports of
recyclable hazardous waste to Eastern and Central Europe and
particularly to the Baltic States.

GERMANY -- World champion waste trading nation.  Although
currently seeking legislation to better control its embarrassing
waste trade scandals, still seems fixated on exporting waste to
Eastern and Central Europe and Asia. 

JAPAN -- Known to send large quantities of lead batteries and
other metals waste to poorer Asian neighbours such as Southeast
Asian nations and Korea.  Their position so far indicates that
they want to maintain or increase such waste export.  However,
position of new government is not known, and new Environment
Minster supported waste trade ban as an MP in the Diet in
February 1992.  Following turnaround on ocean dumping issue in
the London Convention, there is reason for hope.

UNITED KINGDOM -- A polite but regressive delegation in all Basel
meetings.  The government is clearly seeking to preserve a free
trade in toxic metals, particularly to Asian nations.  Hails the
benefits of "self-sufficiency" but barely monitors massive flow
of toxic wastes to South.

UNITED STATES -- In new Clinton Administration there are hopeful
signs here for some kind of movement.  A decision was almost
reached in December 1993 toward a ban to non-OECD countries with
the exception of Mexico.  Final position still pending.
Significant trade going on in metals and plastic waste to Asia
and Mexico. 

The Compromise: Create a Recycling Loophole

In the end, however, the Piriapolis meeting did not vote on a
total ban.  Instead, a last-minute compromise was found to delay
a decision until the next meeting in March 1994.  It was felt by
many that the compromise was hastily forged primarily due to the
fear that the wealthiest nations would not ratify the treaty with
a ban in place.  The world's biggest waste producers and
exporters--the US, Japan and all the EU nations--had not yet
completed ratification procedures and were thus not yet parties
to the Convention at the Piriapolis meeting.  

Rather than a total ban, the Basel Convention parties agreed
instead that exports for final disposal from industrialised to
developing countries should cease.  Exports for recycling,
however, were allowed to continue pending a review and until a
final decision is taken at the next meeting of the Parties. 
However, at the same time, the Parties agreed that all hazardous
waste imports by developing countries should cease, regardless of
the reason for the import.  If this sounds like a
contradiction, then you understand things correctly.

Although it is not logically or ethically possible to export
hazardous wastes to those for whom you have requested import
bans, the big question that remains for the Basel Convention is
whether wastes destined for recycling or recovery operations will
be allowed for export from industrialised to developing
countries.  


THE REMAINING OBSTACLES TO A GLOBAL BAN

Recycling: Dumping by a Green Name

     Suddenly, everyone wants to call themselves recyclers.

     -- Carol Ash, Regional Director of New York City,
     Environmental Office.

As previously noted, recycling was never considered the pinnacle
of the waste hierarchy and should never have been seen as any
kind of solution to the waste crisis.  It should not come as a
surprise however, that the heretofore "green" term "recycling" is
now increasingly used as a justification for dubious processes
and the export of hazardous wastes even to some of the poorest
countries in the world.  Countless excuses have been witnessed
for trading wastes on the basis of alleged recycling benefits to
the environment or the recipients of the wastes.  

This trend is growing rapidly.  In the period from 1980 to 1988,
only 36 percent of all waste trade schemes claimed some form of
"recycling" or "further use" of the waste.  In the period from
1989-1990 the recycling figure had risen to 54 percent, and in
the most recent surveys carried out in 1993,  a full 90 percent
of the waste trade schemes show some form of "further use" or
"recycling" as a pretext for waste export.

Jan Huisman, who heads the United Nations International Registry
of Potentially Toxic Chemicals (IRPTC) programme in Geneva, has 
expressed concern.  "It's a new fashion, a second generation of
waste export," he commented. "There is still quite a lot of
effort going into waste 'disposal' which is not exactly dumping, 
but which may turn out to be not very far from that."

The "new wave" of waste exports purported to be shipped abroad
for recycling is a direct result of efforts undertaken by the
lawmakers in industrialised countries to ensure that loopholes
exist in waste trade legislation for anything called recyclable
waste.  Spurred largely by free trade proponents and the
secondary metals industry, these loopholes are found in the OECD
initiative (C(90)178/Final) and in the European Union's new
regulation (see above).  Now it seems that the decision on a
global ban within the Basel Convention rests also on the
recycling pretext.

Whereas the Basel Convention recognises the need to "reduce
transfrontier movements of all wastes to a minimum consistent
with environmentally sound and efficient management,"and to
"ensure that the generation of hazardous waste ...is reduced to a
minimum,"  the waste generating parties to the Convention have so
far fought desperately to avoid preventing wastes and to maintain
business-as-usual by allowing their wastes an outlet through the
"green" avenue of recycling.
 
In the real world, when waste is hazardous, its export for
recycling in non-OECD countries invariably involves either a
complete sham and a pretext for export with no recycling taking
place at all; or an operation that poisons workers and the
environment and merely perpetuates the business-as-usual
practices of waste-intensive manufacturing and use-it-and-throw-
it-away consumption.


Sham Recycling

Today, "recycling" is very often used as a pretext for making
profits from hazardous waste "disposal".  Many "recyclers" make a
majority of their profits from the mere act of taking the waste--
that is, providing the service of "disposal".  These "recyclers"
are paid to receive waste because of its known
hazard. Increasingly, as more waste streams are banned from
landfilling or incineration, recycling processes are seen by
industry as the only remaining waste escape route.

Because almost any waste can be claimed to be of "use" to the
poorest segments of our society, it is easy to claim some form of
recycling pretext when exporting to poorer, less regulated
communities and countries.  Most often these "uses" are designed
around real needs of the countries involved, with little
reference to the inherent dangers.  Most common examples include
utilising hazardous wastes to create energy or as road-building
material.  But much more outlandish proposals are made as well,
including the creation of construction material, fertiliser, and
even the use of wastes to raise the level of Pacific islands in
order to counter the effects of global warming and rising sea
levels! 


Dirty Recycling

While some waste traders use the word "recycling" as a blatant
pretext in order to take advantage of legal loopholes or relaxed
government scrutiny, more "legitimate" forms of hazardous waste
recycling (for example, metals reclamation or plastics recycling)
also involve dangerous worker exposure or the dumping of toxic
material on the environment of the importing country.  

Wastes bound for recovery operations are no less dangerous than
wastes bound for "final disposal".  And, given the fact that
recycled wastes are usually handled more, they actually present a
greater threat to occupational health and safety than wastes
destined for outright dumping.  Further, toxic residues from
waste recycling operations often have a higher concentration of
deadly chemicals than the original wastes from which they come. 
Inevitably, since nothing can be recycled absolutely 100 per
cent, hazardous residues and emissions from any such processes
are released as pollution on the receiving country's territory.

While the rhetoric of recycling can sound wonderful on paper. 
However, if any delegates from meetings discussing it as an
abstract solution to the waste crisis were to actually visit the
facilities in Taiwan, the Philippines, Ukraine, Russia, Mexico,
and Brazil for example, they would soon realise that something is
very wrong with the recycling picture.  The international trail
of toxic waste has taken Greenpeace researchers to over 30
countries to witness waste importation facilities and sites.  It
has taken them to places like Cato Ridge, South Africa, where
workers in a plant recycling imported mercury wastes have died
and others still remain in hospital from irreparable mercury
poisoning.They have seen lead batteries and PVC plastics
melted down invariably without any protective clothing or
breathing equipment.  They have seen mountains of toxic residues
from "recycling" operations engulfing people's homes.  They have
yet to find one recycling facility in a non-OECD country that
could earn the description "environmentally sound".
  
It is telling that over 100 countries, many of which have
experienced the "joys" of hazardous waste recycling from the
receiving end, have overwhelmingly rejected all forms of
hazardous waste importation including any for recycling
destinations. 


The Waste Empire Strikes Back

Following the Piriapolis meeting, industry forces mobilised, in
particular those of the scrap metal industry.  The chemical
industry is now recognised as being unopposed to a ban as they
see all too well the serious public relations liability in
allowing chemical waste exports to land on southern shores.  
Over the past decade however, the metal industries have found a
niche for avoiding the high costs of landfill or recycling at
home by exporting heavy metal residues, slags, and sludges to
locations where labour costs are cheaper and environmental
enforcement minimal.  The scrap industry, either intentionally or
in  unwitting service to suppliers, exports metallic waste
streams contaminated with heavy metals or organic compounds such
as PCBs or dioxins.  Rather than seeking means to ensure that the
waste streams they export are devoid of toxic impurities, the
scrap metal industry has seen fit to launch a strategy aimed at
undermining international efforts to end the hazardous waste
trade.   

The Bureau International de la Rcupration (BIR), which
represents thousands of scrap metal reclamation businesses, finds
itself at the forefront of the industrial lobby to defeat a full
hazardous waste trade ban from OECD to non-OECD countries. The
BIR uses the International Chamber of Commerce to lobby on its
behalf at all Basel meetings.  Even more effective, however, are
the numerous approaches the BIR has made to its friends in the
meetings, in particular the delegations of the "Sinister Seven"
countries.  And, more and more lobbyists representing the BIR are
approaching non-OECD countries and the Basel Convention
Secretariat to convince them that economic development based on
hazardous waste importation may not be such a bad idea. 


Waste to East: The "Non-OECD" Question 

The Basel Convention, signed in March 1989, is a product of the 
Cold War era.  The term "developing country", used throughout the
Convention's text, no longer adequately incorporates all of the
areas of the world that are vulnerable to economically-motivated
transboundary toxic waste dumping.
 
Prior to 1989, the economic and political barriers between East
and West created a de facto ban on waste trade between those
regions.  Almost immediately following the collapse of the Berlin
Wall, however, reports of Western hazardous wastes arriving in 
the new republics of Eastern and Central Europe and the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) became prevalent. 
Greenpeace has since published numerous dossiers documenting
toxic waste traffic flowing from Western Europe to Russia,
Romania, Hungary, Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic States, and
Albania.  
 
In response, the governments of Albania, Bosnia Hercegovina,
Croatia, Hungary,  Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovenia,
and Ukraine, now support a ban on waste trade from OECD to non-
OECD countries.  These newly-independent republics all recognise
the need to halt waste imports, even if historically they have
never been called "developing" countries.  
 
It is for this reason that the more precise legal distinction of
OECD and non-OECD (inclusive of Eastern and Central European
countries) is the proper determiner between sender and
recipient to which any ban must apply. However, it is becoming
increasingly clear, that certain "Sinister Seven" countries--most
notably Finland and Germany-- continue to look eastward and
steadfastly refuse to adopt language banning waste shipments to
"non-OECD countries". 
 
The issue, of banning waste shipments to all "non-OECD" rather
than just "developing" countries, is thus likely to be a
contentious point in the March 1994 meeting.  Will the Convention
change its language to reflect the new global reality of the
devastated economies of Central and Eastern Europe?  It will be a
Pyrrhic victory indeed if waste exports are banned to the South,
while Western Europe is allowed to continue pouring its toxic
wastes into the already ravaged environments of Eastern Europe.

   
ACHIEVING A GLOBAL BAN IN BASEL

     It is a grave abuse and an offence against the
     solidarity of humanity when industrial enterprises of
     rich countries profit  from the weak economies and
     legislation of poorer countries by exporting dirty
     technologies and wastes which degrade the environment
     and health of the population.

          --Pope John Paul II, October 22nd 1993, Rome.

The scandalous international waste trade has held a mirror of
conscience and doubt before the faces of the northern
industrialised powers.  Probably no recent environmental offence
has demonstrated more clearly the unsustainable excesses of
industrialisation and consumerism, or the undeniable link between
environmental destruction and the global inequity of wealth.

The hazardous waste trade uniquely disturbs both our physical and
ethical well-being.  It represents a poisoning by pollution and
of principle.  While dealing out shock treatment to our
environmentally bankrupt, throw-away society, it underscores the
moral as well as environmental threats posed by an unleashed
"free market".  In the wake of the "death ships", the world not
only saw barrels on the beaches, they recognised the profanity of
the hazardous effluent of the affluent hurting those least
responsible in a new form of colonialism.  

The global response has been a steady but growing repudiation of
the trade.  Today 103 non-OECD countries have full hazardous
waste import bans.  Three regional conventions (Lom IV, Bamako,
Central American Agreement) have been adopted, prohibiting waste
imports into non-OECD countries.  Three more legal instruments
banning waste trade are in the process of being drafted (South
Pacific Forum, Barcelona Convention, and the Commission for
Protection of the Southern Pacific).  And three more agreements
to achieve regional bans are now in the planning stages (Black
Sea Convention, Association of South East Asian Nations, and the
Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean).  

Considering how slowly governments move in relation to
environmental dilemmas, the sheer volume of recent legislation
represents a political tidal wave.  But what is still missing is
a total global ban on exports North to South, and West to East. 

Despite its minimalist origins, the Basel Convention is now
poised to plug the recycling loophole and adopt a total ban on
this most flagrant form of the international trade in hazardous
wastes.  The Basel Convention is committed to the principle of
requiring "environmentally sound management of hazardous waste". 
But we ask: can it ever be considered environmentally sound
management for rich technologically advanced countries to dump
their hazardous waste on countries with even fewer resources and
capability to manage them, while at the same time avoiding the
responsibility to prevent waste generation at source?  The answer
is that economically motivated waste trade such as that moving
from North to South or from West to East will always work in
contradiction to the goal of environmentally sound management of
hazardous waste.

A prohibition of waste exports will provide incentives to finally
force the implementation of waste prevention.  This has already
proven to be the case in Germany, where the industrial use of
toxic halogenated solvents has been reduced from 180,000 tonnes
in 1989 to 50,000 tonnes in 1992 after Germany banned their
disposal by incineration at sea in 1990.  Since that time
industry has discovered new innovative approaches such as the use
of ultra sound de-greasing, rapeseed oil, and water based
solvents to minimise the use of toxic solvents.   

By closing the last of the global escape valves the hazardous
wastes of industrialised countries, all of the global community--
North and South, East and West--will gain, and we can move into
the next century  thinking about exporting the best products of
technological development, rather than the worst by-products.

END