TL: Toxic Trade Update-Vol 6,Iss 2 SO: Greenpeace International, Toxic Trade (GP) DT: June 1993 Keywords: environment greenpeace toxics trade waste hazardous exports newsletters / - Second Quarter 1993 Electronic Edition The Greenpeace Toxic Trade Update is the quarterly newsletter of the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, and is available in Spanish, French and English (Spanish and French editions not available on line). Our campaign seeks an end to the international trade in toxic wastes, toxic products and toxic technologies. We welcome submissions on this topic from environmental organizations, activists, scientific institutions and other interested parties. Articles in Toxic Trade Update 6.2 Chlorine Chemistry Expansion: The Environmental Mistake of the 21st Century? By Kenny Bruno and Jed Greer Toxic Trade Legislation PIC Discussions at FAO Meetings US Pushes Waste Dumping at Basel Meeting Taiwan Rules on Waste Trade Central America Waste Trade Ban Working Argentina Reverses Ban on Waste Trade Ukraine Latest Victim of Waste Trade List of Countries Banning Waste Trade Latvia Bans Waste Trade EC Prior Informed Consent Regulation Netherlands Ratifies Basel Convention List of Countries Ratifying Basel Convention Toxic Waste Trade Plastic Wastes Accumulate in Indonesian Ports U.S. Toxic Fertilizer in Bangladesh CEI Promotes Pyrolysis in Pacific Tonga Considers Dumping Scheme Orchid Island: Taiwan's Nuclear Dumpsite - Guest column by Chen Dan-ken, Jun-yi and Piyao Lin Toxic Waste Scandal in Ukraine German Waste Out of Romania! Finnish and German Wastes Dumped in Estonia U.K. Waste Dumping in Mexico and Bolivia Honduras Rejects U.S. Tire Waste Shipment Radioactive Waste Shipped Through Panama Canal German Wastes for Ecuador US Asbestos Ship in Turkey Toxic Trade Patrol in Los Angeles Quebec - Dumpsite for the United States US Convicts Waste Traders Denmark Halts Plans to Import German Waste French Environmentalists Fight German Waste Imports What is the German Green Dot? Toxic Products Trade Japan Sends Dangerous Pesticides to Cambodia Parathion Poisoning in Argentina Port Ecuador Narrowly Averts U.S. Pesticide Waste Dumping Velsicol and Banned Pesticides Exports Toxic Technology Transfers Incineration Industry Moves South and East - By Connie Murtagh Proposed Incinerator for Warsaw Put on Hold The Toxic Technology of Cyanide Heap Leaching - By Jed Greer Protecting the Environment through Contractual Clauses - By Paul Pivcevic Resources on Toxic Trade Subscribe now to the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Update. If you would like to receive by mail this comprehensive analysis of the international trade in toxics, complete with striking documentary photographs, and amusing graphics, then subscribe today. The Greenpeace Toxic Trade Update is published quarterly in three languages: English, French and Spanish. The annual subscription rate is US$20.00 standard, US$50.00 corporate, US$10.00 student. Current resources and publications are listed below. Please send a check or money order made payable to the "Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign" to Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20009, USA. Name: Organization: Address: City: State/Province: Postal Code: Country: Telephone: Telefax/Telex: Reason for interest: Language: Other Toxic Trade Resources Desired: Name of Publication or Video: Cost: Total: Also, if you are interested in joining the campaign to stop waste exports from your community, send US$3.00 for Greenpeace's Waste Trade Free Zone: Community Action Kit. This grassroots organizing manual provides strategies for halting the export of wastes from your community. Although the kit is definitely oriented toward the international waste trade campaign, many of the skills and techniques described in the kit can be used for organizing any campaign. Greenpeace also has an activist network which enables Greenpeace supporters to get involved with various campaigns and initiatives. If you have some skill that you think would be useful for Greenpeace activities, if you want to lend your support at rallies and protests, and if you want to become more than a financial supporter of the Greenpeace mission, please send your name, address and phone number to the Greenpeace Activist Network, 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009, USA. Toxic Trade Publications Coordinator: Heather Spalding - Greenpeace U.S. - Washington, 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20009, U.S. Toxic Trade Campaigners: ARGENTINA - Mario Epelman - Greenpeace Cono Sur, Bartolome Mitre 226, Piso 4, 1036 Buenos Aires AUSTRALIA - Simon Divecha - Greenpeace Australia, P.O. Box 800, Surry Hills, Sydney NSW 2010, Australia CANADA - Stephane Gingras, Elizabeth Loudon - Greenpeace Canada - Montreal, 2444 Notre Dame Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, H3J 1N5 CENTRAL AMERICA - Erwin Garzona - Greenpeace Central America, 10 Calle 3-15, Zona 1, Guatemala City, Guatemala CZECH REPUBLIC AND SLOVAKIA - Antonin Mucha - Greenpeace CSFR, U Prasne brany 3, CS-110 00, Prague DENMARK - Janus Hillgaard - Greenpeace Denmark, Linnesgade 25, 1, 1361 Copenhagen K EUROPE - Roberto Ferrigno (Acting European Coordinator), Cathy Fogel, Jim Puckett, Kevin Stairs, Julia True - Greenpeace International, Keizersgracht 176, 1016 DW Amsterdam, The Netherlands EUROPEAN COMMUNITY - Susan Leubuscher, Jackie Lilly - Greenpeace EC Unit, Vooruitgangstraat 317, 1210 Brussels, Belgium FRANCE - Pierre-Emmanuel Neurohr - Greenpeace France, 28 Rue des Petites, Ecuries, 75010 Paris GERMANY (Western) - Andreas Bernstorff, Ingo Bokermann - Greenpeace Germany, Vorsetzen 53, Hamburg 11 GERMANY (Eastern) - Greenpeace Germany, Chausseestrasse 131, 1040 Berlin ITALY - Paola Biocca - Greenpeace Italy, 28 Viale Manlio Gelsomini, 00153 Roma LATIN AMERICA - Marijane Lisboa (Latin America Toxics Coordinator) - Greenpeace Brazil, Rua Pinheiros, 240, Conjunto 32, Sao Paulo MEDITERRANEAN - Mario Damato - Greenpeace Mediterranean Project, Ses Rafaletes, 13 - 1, 07015 Palma de Mallorca, Spain MEXICO - Fernando Bejarano - Greenpeace Mexico, La Escondida 110, Colonia Coyoacan, CP 04000, Mexico D.F. THE NETHERLANDS - John Arends - Greenpeace Netherlands, Keizersgracht 174, 1016 DW Amsterdam PACIFIC - Dave Rapaport - Greenpeace Pacific Campaign, P.O. Box 12027, Eugene, Oregon, 97440, USA RUSSIA - Oganes Targulian - Greenpeace Russia, Ulitsa Dolgorukovskaya 21, 103006, Moscow SPAIN - Juantxo Lopez de Uralde - Greenpeace Spain, 58 Rodriguez San Pedro, 4 Piso, 28015 Madrid SWEDEN - Rune Eriksen, Matts Knapp - Greenpeace Sweden, Box 8913, S-402 73, Goteborg SWITZERLAND - Stefan Weber - Greenpeace Switzerland, Muellerstrasse 37, 8004 Zurich TUNISIA - Wahid Labidi - Greenpeace Tunisia, 51 Av. Abdellaziz Thaalbi, El Manar 2, 2092 Tunis U.K. - Madeleine Cobbing, Kerry Rankine, Iza Kruszewska - Greenpeace U.K., Canonbury Villas, London, N1 2PN U.K. - Topsy Jewell, Greenpeace International Annex, Temple House, 25/26 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2LU U.S. - Kenny Bruno, Jed Greer - Greenpeace New York, 462 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10013 U.S. - Marcelo Furtado, Ann Leonard, Sandra Marquardt, Connie Murtagh, Jim Vallette (Coordinator) - Greenpeace Washington - Washington, 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20009 UKRAINE - Alexei Kabyka - Greenpeace Ukraine, P.O. Box 500, Kiev, 252010 Circulation: 5,000 (Est.) total for Spanish, French and English editions, distributed to activists, journalists and government officials worldwide. Feature Article Chlorine Chemistry Expansion: The Environmental Mistake of the 21st Century? By Kenny Bruno and Jed Greer In the next decade, the petrochemical industry plans a massive expansion into Asia, the Pacific Rim and Latin America. About half of all commercial chemistry involves chlorine, and this expansion will include chlorine-related products and industries, especially polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. The development of controversial waste disposal facilities such as incinerators for chlorinated wastes will accompany this expansion. These industries involve some of the most toxic substances known to science, and thus face opposition, stagnation and decline in their countries of origin in Western Europe and North America. Yet proponents claim PVC, for example, is a necessary part of improving quality of life, and they promote investment in the migration of these industries to the Third World. Environmental evidence suggests that the growth of chlorinated chemicals in the South is an example of a toxic industry moving when it is no longer accepted in its birthplace. If lead in gasoline has been "the mistake of the 20th century," as one World Health Organization writer put it, chlorine chemistry may be the mistake of the 21st century for the Third World. The Path of Least Resistance This is not the first time a dirty industry has migrated North to South. While imitating the toxic industrialization model of the North, the South has imported entire industries which are hazardous to human health and the environment. Examples include the use of lead additive in gasoline, asbestos for insulation and cement, and intensive pesticide use in plantations. The examples suggest that the migration of toxic industries follows roughly this path: Stage 1. Develops in the industrialized North. Stage 2. Spreads to the less industrialized South. Stage 3. Declines in North, due to environmental, health and economic factors. Stage 4. Remains in the South where, due to lack of regulations and enforcement, it does even more damage than in the North. The Next Wave: Chlorine and Related Industries Chlorine migration is in Stages 2 and 3 simultaneously, that is, these industries are expanding in the South while stagnating in the North. The worldwide chlorine industry faces declining demand in CFCs, solvents, chlorinated pesticides and chlorine pulp bleaching because of national or international restrictions, bans, and phase-outs. CFCs, for example, are being phased out under the Montreal Protocol on Substances That Deplete The Ozone Layer. Safer products are replacing chlorinated solvents in the electronics, paints and metal finishing industries. Because of concern over dioxin discharges, according to estimates, in 2000 the pulp and paper industry will consume about three times less chlorine than it did in 1980. Chlorinated pesticides such as DDT and dieldrin have been banned or severely restricted in many countries. The Paris Commission and International Joint Commission On The Great Lakes have called for the phase-out of organochlorine (another term for chlorinated chemical) discharges to water, putting additional pressure on manufacturers and users of the compounds. To compensate for these serious market losses, industry is reacting in two ways. First, it is shifting new plant investment from industrialized to less industrialized regions, where analysts see significant market-growth potential. Second, it is vigorously promoting PVC, a product which uses a great deal of the world's chlorine production. Although U.S. and Western European chlorine production will remain stagnant or drop, analysts believe production will rise in Latin America (Brazil, Mexico), the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Iran), Africa (Egypt, Libya), and Asia (Thailand, India, Taiwan, China). Overall, Asia's chlorine capacity is expected to increase the most, rising some 710,000 metric tonnes/year between 1991 and 1995. Recent examples of chlorine technology investment in some of these areas include the expansion of ICI and PPG Industries in Asia, OxyChem in Latin America, and Shell Oil in the Middle East. A key factor driving this important structural shift in worldwide chlorine production capacity is industry's hope and projection that demand for chlorine will grow in the less industrialized world. Over the next several years, demand in the Middle East is estimated to rise 9% annually; in Asia/Pacific, the figure is 7%; in Latin America, 5%; and in Africa, 2%. Whether or not industry's hope is fulfilled depends significantly on its ability to promote the use of PVC. PVC and the Chlor-Alkali Equation From an environmental standpoint, the ultimate goal should be to phase-out the production, use and disposal of all chlorinated chemicals. But from industry's perspective, a decline in chlorine production is not simple to achieve. Chlorine is a byproduct of the manufacture of caustic soda, a compound for which demand is steady. As long as this remains the case, caustic soda producers will need to sell chlorine, which otherwise becomes a waste. This apparent dilemma can be resolved by reducing caustic soda demand through conservation and recycling, by substituting caustic soda with alternative alkalis and by using chlorine-free feedstocks such as soda ash for sodium hydroxide production. This feature of chlorine production -- the necessity of balancing demand for both caustic soda and chlorine -- helps explain industry's push for increased use of chlorine-intensive PVC. PVC accounts for over one-quarter of worldwide chlorine use. As markets for CFCs and chlorine pulp bleaching contract or disappear, some industry sources see PVC as perhaps the only product that can sustain some level of growth in chlorine demand. Analysts predict that the primary areas of PVC market rise during the 1990s will be Latin America (with nearly 7% annual growth), Asia/Pacific (6%), Mideast/Africa (5.5%), with North America, Japan, and Western Europe trailing behind (with rates of 3.4%, 2.8%, and 2% respectively). The relatively low growth in the industrialized world is due to the high levels of consumption already reached in those regions. But, it is also because PVC is coming under attack for environmental reasons. In Germany over 60 towns and local authorities have a phase-out program for PVC use in public buildings, and the retail chain Tengelman has decided to replace PVC packaging. In Austria, two of nine states have prohibited PVC in public buildings and hospitals in Vienna are experimenting with PVC alternatives. The Swedish company IKEA, one of the world's largest furniture distributors, announced in 1991 that it would use environmentally friendly substitutes for PVC and would phase out PVC products wherever possible. Irma, Denmark's biggest supermarket chain, has achieved a 99% reduction of PVC. Other companies are responding to environmental concerns about PVC less positively. Last year, Austrian PVC companies sued Greenpeace for an advertisement depicting PVC as an environmental poison. In the new-growth regions of the South, manufacturers tout PVC as environmentally positive and as an essential part of an improved standard of living. A Canadian company is marketing all PVC plastic houses in Mexico, Thailand, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East, invoking the need for economical housing in those areas. In Thailand, another company advertises PVC as a "green" substitute material for wood products. Using the slogan "Save The Tree -- Use PVC," this company suggests that greater PVC use will help prevent deforestation. Incinerating Chlorinated Waste: The Dioxin Connection Perhaps the best-known controversy in the chlorine debate revolves around disposal of chlorinated wastes. Organochlorine wastes are globally ubiquitous and have caused the contamination of drinking water, closing of fisheries, endangerment of species and the evacuation of entire communities. Their tendency to persist in sediments and bioaccumulate up the food chain makes them inappropriate for direct discharge into water, and disposal in "secure, sanitary" landfills leads to groundwater contamination. The U.S. government and others have banned land disposal of such wastes. This leaves incineration as the primary disposal method for waste generators, and industry has undertaken a monumental effort to publicize the benefits of "state-of-the-art" incinerators. However, chlorine, along with lead and mercury, has surfaced as an achilles heel of the incineration industry. The presence of chlorine in incinerated wastes, whether in chemical industrial waste or PVC waste from homes and hospitals, creates toxic gas emissions including dioxins and furans. A large and vocal grassroots movement against incineration has grown almost everywhere incinerator builders have ventured. Local community opposition has blocked almost all new U.S. incinerator projects in the last five years, and regulations may soon increase the pressure on the incinerator industry. On May 18, 1993, at the height of an intense legal and political battle over a hazardous waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio, the EPA announced an 18-month moratorium on the siting and permitting of new hazardous waste incinerators and tighter regulations on waste burning industrial furnaces. The petrochemical boom in Asia and elsewhere will bring with it a boom in hazardous waste generation. There is currently an explosion of schemes to send incinerators and incinerator technology from the U.S. to Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and Latin America. (See related article in this issue). The establishment of incineration capacity is a disturbing development, as it will tend to institutionalize the generation of wastes, including chlorinated wastes, in industrializing regions. The warning in this article may surprise some readers because chlorine itself maintains a positive image as a disinfectant and bleaching agent in many regions of the world. Even in the North, with a longer experience of chlorine chemistry, consciousness of the chlorine connection to so many poisons is just emerging. The fight between industry and environmentalists over the image and future of chlorine has begun in earnest in Europe, and doubtless will spread to other regions along with industrial production itself. Those involved in these debates will hear a great deal about the benefits of chlorine chemistry and the environmental improvements the industry is making. Whatever one thinks of those "improvements," behind the advertising promises of the chlorine industry lies a series of products and technologies which lead to long-term, intractable environmental and public health problems. Without a conscious, determined effort to screen out investments and trade in toxic chemicals and processes, the countries of Asia and the Pacific, Latin America, and elsewhere will find themselves the new homes of chlorine and chlorinated compounds long after the industrialized world has recognized the dangers and begun a phase-out. Fortunately, most less industrialized countries are not yet major producers and consumers of chlorine and its derivatives. Keeping in mind the geography of dirty industry migration, a hard close look at all chlorine-related sectors, including incineration, is an environmental necessity. It is not too late to stop the unnecessary expansion of these hazardous chemicals and processes. The Hazards of Chlorine Chemistry and PVC Chlorine chemistry, which produces organochlorines, is at the root of some of the world's most toxic, persistent and bioaccumulative chemicals. The pesticides DDT and Agent Orange, PCBs, ozone-depleting CFCs, and by-products such as dioxins and furans, all belong to the family of organochlorines. Much of the world's most notoriously toxic synthetic chemicals are organochlorines, and hundreds of these compounds are now found worldwide, from the tissues of marine mammals to the breast milk of nursing mothers. Their effects include cancer, birth defects, reproductive, developmental, and neurological impairment, immune suppression, and damage to the skin, liver, kidneys, and other organs. For these reasons, the Paris Commission and International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes have called for the phase-out of organochlorine discharges to water. PVC creates environmental problems throughout its life cycle. The production of PVC powder involves the transport of dangerous explosive materials and the creation of toxic wastes. Then, because PVC by itself is an almost useless plastic, it must be combined with chemical additives to make it soft and pliable, heavy metals to make it hard or give it color, and fungicides to keep bacteria from eating it. The toxics in PVC products can be dangerous to consumers exposed to certain additives, and they ultimately wind up in landfills that inevitably pollute groundwater, or in incinerators. WHAT YOU CAN DO: * Alert Greenpeace's Chlorine Migration Prevention Team about any attempts to move chlorine and chlorine-related technologies across national borders. Contact: Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, 462 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10013, USA. Toxic Trade Legislation International Environmentalists Urge End of Toxic Pesticides Trade at Two FAO Meetings Environmental NGOs advocated fundamental changes in international pesticides trade policies and programs at two international governmental meetings sponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The meetings were held in May in San Jose, Costa Rica, and Marrakech, Morroco. At these meetings, Greenpeace and other groups called for: * a total halt in the trade in pesticides which have been banned, restricted, withdrawn, or not registered in their countries of manufacture; * a total halt to all donations of pesticides for locust control programs; * full public access to information about the hazards of pesticides; * and, the development and implementation of effective measures and programs to reduce the use of pesticides and to promote organic agriculture. San Jose Meeting on Prior Informed Consent During the first week of May in San Jose, Costa Rica, the FAO, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the U.N. Institute on Training and Research (UNITAR) held a meeting on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) principle about the production, trade and use of pesticides and other toxic chemicals. Government officials, agrochemical industry representatives and some non- governmental organizations from the seven Central American countries, Cuba and the Dominican Republic attended the meeting. Environmental groups attending the meeting expressed concern that the PIC principle allowed trade in dangerous pesticides disregarding human health concerns and environmental safety. They also criticized the PIC principle for not establishing criteria to reduce pesticide use and encourage organic agriculture. Greenpeace Central America attended the meeting and explained some of the dramatic problems caused by pesticides in the region. Meeting participants were strongly divided in their responses to the Greenpeace proposals to replace the toxic pesticide trade with ecological agriculture. One representative of the agrochemical industry requested that Greenpeace not be invited to future meetings, while a representative from the Costa Rican Ministry of Health called on delegates to support the Greenpeace alternatives. Marrakech Meeting on Locust Control From May 24-28, the FAO held an international workshop in Morocco on research and planning for desert locust control. Hundreds of pesticides experts, donors, government officials and NGO representatives attended the meeting. Pesticides companies used the opportunity to advertise their toxic products and equipment such as spraying helicopters. Their advertisements reflected the current standard approach -- chemical spraying -- to desert locust control. Greenpeace and the Pesticides Trust presented a report to the workshop showing that there is no firm evidence that chemical controls appreciably affected the decline of locust plagues, and that the environmental and economic costs of these controls likely outweighed their benefits. The joint Greenpeace-Pesticides Trust submission, ***The Need for a New Approach to Locust Control***, noted that during the 1986-89 African locust infestation, 4 million hectares were sprayed with pesticides, with little regard for the necessity, effectiveness, and environmental impact of the spraying operations. In 1988, the four northwest African countries of the Maghreb region alone applied 11 million litres of insecticides. The conventional approach to locust control, according to the report, damages the environment and human health, creates a long- term waste disposal problem, fosters an increasing dependency on cheap or freely available pesticides in other agricultural sectors, and discourages the development of ecologically-sound alternatives to chemical spraying. DIRECT IMPACT OF LOCUST SPRAYING: Significant environmental and health damage, including human poisoning, honey bee destruction, fish, bird and domestic animal kills, resulted from the 1986-1989 locust control program. The U.S. Office of Technology Assessment found that "direct and indirect human exposure to insecticides was sometimes dangerously high in recent campaigns." Pesticide applicators were contaminated, people eating sprayed locusts were poisoned and poisonings also resulted from reuse of pesticide containers. LONG-TERM WASTE DISPOSAL PROBLEM: 80% of all pesticide imports to many African countries are donations. Unused, unusable or unwanted donated products have been found stored in damaged containers at facilities that lack adequate containment or safety provisions. The climate exacerbates the corrosion of containers, which are commonly sited near population centres and close to vulnerable surface and groundwater reserves. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency commented that "although international and bilateral donor organizations contribute these pesticides with good intentions, their gifts can cause more problems than they solve." CHEMICAL DEPENDENCY: Locust control programs may also be indirectly subsidizing and stimulating an increase in general pesticide use. Excess pesticides donated for locust control programs inevitably end up in the hands of farmers for use in attempts to control other pests. Control over these pesticides at both the environmental and household level is minimal. Farmers often do not know what chemicals they are using, their potential health effects nor on which crops they might most appropriately be used. PREVENTING CLEAN ALTERNATIVES: A preoccupation with chemical control methods has meant that alternative strategies have been neglected. The research, development and appraisal of other options such as biological, traditional and cultural controls remain seriously underfunded. The Greenpeace-Pesticides Trust submission says that "policies must have the two-fold objective of phasing out donations and subsidies to pesticide use, and of redirecting them towards effective and environmentally sound, non-chemical agricultural strategies more in keeping with current global priorities." According to Greenpeace Tunisia toxic trade campaigner Wahid Labidi, the Greenpeace-Pesticides Trust information and recommendations were welcomed by many officials of North African governments attending the meeting, but were not as well-received by pesticides exporting countries. (Source: Greenpeace Central America; Greenpeace Tunisia; Pesticides Trust and Greenpeace International, ***The Need for a New Approach to Locust Control***, Submission to FAO International Workshop on Research and Planning For Desert Locust Control, Marrakech, Morocco, 24-28 May 1993.) US Pushes Waste Dumping at Basel Meeting When the United Nations-sponsored Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was signed in Switzerland in 1989, negotiators left the key issue of defining "environmentally sound management of wastes" to a future Technical Working Group (TWG). According to observers of the 1989 negotiations, the U.S. delegation was largely responsible for the postponement of the definition. The U.S. refused to sign the convention if its definition of "environmentally sound management" prevented countries from shipping wastes to foreign facilities that would not meet environmental standards of the exporting country. The TWG met in Geneva, Switzerland from June 2-4, 1993. If nothing else, the meeting showed that the United States' international posture on waste trade has not changed since 1989. Throughout the meeting, David Bussard from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, demanded that hazardous waste be allowed to be shipped to countries where environmental regulations are much weaker than those in the United States. "The U.S. does not agree that hazardous waste exports should be minimized under the Basel Convention. We should be allowed to export hazardous waste to countries with lower standards, even when a practice has been banned in the U.S.," said Mr. Bussard of EPA's Office of Solid Waste. At least 94 less industrialized countries, the targets of hazardous waste from the most developed countries, have adopted a total ban on hazardous waste imports. Many industrial countries support transforming the Basel Convention from one which regulates waste trade to one which bans all toxic waste exports, particularly to less industrialized countries. The U.S. is one of the few industrial countries blocking the appeal for the ban. "The international community has called for a total ban on toxic waste exports to the less industrialized countries, yet the U.S. government remains intent on polluting not only the environment of those countries, but its international relations as well," said Greenpeace's head of delegation, Dr. Kevin Stairs. The next full meeting of the parties to the Basel Convention is tentatively scheduled for March 1994. (Source: Greenpeace International.) Asia Taiwan Rules on Waste Trade The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) of TAIWAN now prohibits the import of some, but not all, kinds of wastes including polychlorobiphenyls (PCB's), lead batteries, transformers and waste hardware. The Taiwan EPA allows trade in waste copper, lead, zinc, cadmium and chromium if importers and exporters obtain official permits prior to transboundary movement. (Source: Central News Agency Taipei, February 13, 1993.) Latin America New Central America Agreement Halts Waste Import Schemes in Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador The people and governments of Central America are invoking their new Agreement on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes in the Central American region to stop the use of their region as a United States dumping ground. The Agreement, signed in Panama last December by six Central American countries, bans waste imports, and the dumping or ship-board burning of hazardous wastes in the oceans. Although the presidents of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama have all signed the Central America Agreement, many waste exporters from the U.S. continue to propose dumping wastes in the region. The region has faced at least 54 schemes to import foreign wastes since 1985, according to Greenpeace Central America. In recent months, the governments of Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador have invoked the new agreement to stop at least seven new waste import schemes. HONDURAS On March 16, Honduras became the first country to ratify the Central America Agreement. Honduras officially released the decision in the national newspaper, ***La Gaceta***, on March 26, and notified the Central American Commission on Environment and Development (CCAD) and the Guatemalan Ministry for Foreign Affairs on April 26. And in June, the Honduran government put its ratification into practice when it rejected a plan to burn thousands of tons of toxic tire wastes from the U.S. (See related article on p. 20.) "Honduran laws, our environmentalist policies and our international commitments do not permit us to import such products," said President Rafael Callejas. NICARAGUA On June 17, the Nicaraguan government agency Institute for Natural Resources and Environment (IRENA) rejected four schemes to import toxic wastes from the U.S., and announced its intention to denounce and stop any other attempt to dump wastes in Nicaragua. IRENA used the new agreement's language and asked other government authorities and the people of Nicaragua to denounce and stop any other attempt to dump toxic wastes in Nicaragua. The announcement followed a six month campaign by Nicaraguan environmental groups, peasants, indigenous and women groups, churches, and academic organizations. A day before IRENA's announcement, a coalition of groups asked IRENA to enforce a national law banning toxic waste imports and to ratify the Central America Agreement. The rejected schemes would have dumped foreign sewage sludge, used tires and household garbage in Nicaragua. EL SALVADOR This year, El Salvador's Executive Secretariat on Environment (SEMA) has rejected two waste trade deals using the Central America Agreement's language. SEMA has also submitted a proposal to the Congress of El Salvador to ratify the agreement. (Source: Greenpeace Central America; Inter Press Service, June 25, 1993.) Argentina Weakens Ban on Waste Imports On May 3, 1993, Argentina's President Carlos Menem signed waste import legislation passed by the Argentine Congress fifteen months before. But by the time President Menem's pen signed the executive decree, over twenty articles from the original had law disappeared. The decree disappointed environmentalists in Argentina who had worked to ensure an absolute ban on the import of all kinds of wastes. Unlike Congress' legislation, the final decree allows some waste imports. Over the past few years, waste traders from Europe and North America have targeted Argentina with many different schemes to import wastes for recycling purposes. In 1991, public opposition to recurring proposals to dump sludges from France, municipal wastes from New Jersey and hundreds of thousands of tons of other wastes from industrialized countries prompted the Argentine Congress to approve legislation in January 1992 banning all waste imports. Mario Epelman, a Greenpeace Cono Sur toxic trade campaigner based in Buenos Aires, noted that "the law clearly states that the import of hazardous waste is banned, but Article 3 of the regulations alters this by saying that `products with a nontoxicity certificate from the country of origin can be imported.'" There is no clause decribing whether these certificates will be checked for accuracy. Epelman said, "The new decree is an insult to the legislative power and the public which called for a categorical ban on imports of wastes from other countries." (Source: Greenpeace Cono Sur; ***Environment Watch: Latin America***, June 1993) Eastern Europe Waste Trade Expanding in the East Ukraine is the Latest Victim The Ukraine, one of the former Soviet Republics, achieved independence in August 1991. It inherited from the Soviet Union an unbalanced, outdated economy, extensive chemical agriculture and enormous environmental problems including radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl accident, and vast toxic pollution of water, soil and air. It is well recognized that Ukraine's environment is in a very deep state of crisis. However, because of the current economic situation, the government does not consider the environment to be an issue of priority. And, apparently, it has not learned from the experience of the former socialist states. In an effort to end the struggle with the numerous and constant attempts of international toxic traders, some Central European countries have recently adopted waste trade bans. Waste traders from Western Europe are now turning to the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Ukraine is becoming a popular target for waste trade and toxic technology transfers. Greenpeace has revealed more than 20 attempts to import various wastes to Ukraine since the beginning of this year. A substantial number of these schemes have been rejected; however, some, such as the recent RIMEX scandal, have resulted in the import of wastes. (See related article on page 16.) Ukrainian legislation does not regulate trade in wastes nor does it contain any specific reference to the issue. Ukraine has not signed any of the international conventions or agreements concerning the trade. Ukrainian environmentalists feel that the lack of waste trade legislation allows and encourages waste traders to operate in their country. "The flow of waste to the areas of the least resistance is a well-documented trend. Only a full ban on the import of wastes in Ukraine will protect the country from the dirty trade," said Alexei Kabyka, a Greenpeace Ukraine campaigner. (Sources: Greenpeace Ukraine, Greenpeace Germany.) Latvia Bans Waste Trade During the first week of May 1993, the Parliament of Latvia passed article No. 1, paragraph 4 which states: "The Republic of Latvia prohibits the import of hazardous waste for storage, disposal, treatment or abolishment." (Sources: Greenpeace Sweden; Latvian Republic Environmental Protection Committee.) Western Europe EC Prior Informed Consent Regulation Offers No Net Gain for the Environment! by Topsy Jewell A new European Community toxic product trade regulation is under fire from critics who fear it legitimizes the trade in extremely hazardous and unnecessary pesticides. The EC "Council Regulation Concerning the Export and Import of Certain Dangerous Chemicals" (No. 2455/92), announced on November 29, 1992, replaces a 1988 regulation (No. 1734/88) with new requirements for chemical exporters to comply with product import bans in other countries, and implements the joint United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) international Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure. This procedure is based on the principle that international shipments of banned or severely restricted chemicals should not proceed without agreement of the importing country. Now under EC law, if a country has informed UNEP or FAO that imports of a PIC chemical are prohibited, then exporters in the EC Member States must comply with this decision and Member States must take appropriate legal or administrative action in the event of an infringement of this law. In cases where destination countries allow imports of PIC chemicals or other chemicals banned or restricted in the EC, exporters must send a notification to importing authorities explaining why it has been banned or restricted, providing information about the dangers of the product and precautions to be taken when using it. However, critics have discovered many loopholes and fundamental flaws in this new directive: * It allows companies to still manufacture and export chemicals banned or severely restricted in the EC; * The regulation's notification procedures are weak and easily circumvented; * Companies can keep secret all but very basic information, leaving the burden of monitoring and publicizing this large-scale and dangerous trade to non-governmental activists. Institutionalizing a Deadly Practice The ultimate failure of the EC directive is that it allows exporters to dump or sell obsolete and banned toxic products in other countries. This deadly trade takes advantage of the inability or unwillingness of importing governments to protect their citizens from outside poisons. For example, in 1991, German waste traders got permission from the Albanian Ministry of Agriculture to send five shipments of expired and banned pesticides to Albania as "humanitarian aid" for use in agriculture. The shipments included two pesticides banned in the EC: toxaphene and phenyl mercury acetate. Shortly after the pesticide waste shipments arrived, Albanian authorities discovered that the chemicals were out of date, improperly packed, of poor quality, and generally unsuitable for agricultural use. A Greenpeace Toxic Trade team visited the waste storage site in November 1992, and again in February 1993. Greenpeace Germany's Andreas Bernstorff reported that "many of the pesticides barrels were badly damaged and leaking. The pesticides were already, or soon would be, contaminating the environment and posing a threat to public health." The Albanian government dismissed its Chief Inspector for the Protection of Plants in the Ministry of Agriculture for having approved the dangerous import. (For more information on this scheme, see Toxic Trade Update 6.1, p. 16.) Under both the 1988 and the new EC Regulation, such a toxic trade scandal is entirely legal. Because the German waste traders submitted the appropriate notification through the German authorities and also got approval from the Ministry of Agriculture in Albania to ship the pesticides, the EC views the export as perfectly legitimate. The Commission of the EC has even assigned export reference numbers to the toxaphene and phenylmercury acetate shipments, and has published them in the "Official Journal" in compliance with the new Regulation. It is now legally impossible for the Albanian authorities to send the unwelcome pesticides back to Germany. Weak Notification Procedures and Missing Lists Under the new regulation, as in the old one, notification need only take place "as far as possible, 15 days before the shipment leaves." No acknowledgement of receipt of the notification by the importing country is necessary and notification is required only for the first shipment that takes place. The list of chemicals subject to the international PIC procedure has not yet been developed. This list is supposed to be included in Annex II of the new Regulation. In fact, Annex II has not been adopted yet and remains a blank sheet. This means that the PIC procedure is still not legally binding although the new regulation has been in force since the end of November 1992. Secrecy of Information Protection of commercial trade data, and the lack of provisions to monitor and prevent unwanted exports further undermine the effectiveness of the new Regulation. The new Regulation provides EC Member States with no explicit obligations to monitor exports or prevent illegal exports. Indeed, the EC is failing to implement the UNEP London Guidelines and FAO Code which require countries "to implement appropriate procedures, within their authority, designed to ensure that exports do not occur contrary to the decisions of importing countries." The regulation's information secrecy and lack of monitoring mechanisms stand in contrast to another EC Regulation (EEC No 428/89) enacted in 1989 to prevent the export of chemicals for use in chemical weapons. Under this regulation, exporters of the chemicals under consideration must obtain a prior export authorization from the competent authorities in the Member State. If the authorities believe that the chemical will be used for the production of chemical weapons, authorities must ban their export. It does not seem unreasonable for EC countries to apply a similar licensing scheme for exports of PIC chemicals. Since the European Community has apparently relinquished its responsibility to protect human health and the environment with strong regulations, environmental activists are monitoring and publicizing the dangerous trade. Trailing the exports, however, is extremely difficult since companies can keep secret all but very basic information in order to protect their commercial interests. Pesticide companies based in the EC account for nearly half of total pesticide sales globally. Although most trade in pesticide products takes place within the EC or with other OECD countries, Germany, France, the UK, the Netherlands and Italy export significant quantities of pesticides to the Third World and Eastern Europe. Barbara Dinham, editor of the 1993 book ***The Pesticide Hazard: A Global Health and Environmental Audit***, described tracing information on exports for most products as "virtually impossible." Ms. Dinham found that EC trade statistics are available for broad categories of formulated pesticides products such as herbicides, fungicides and insecticides. However, the EC provides detailed trade information for only two of the pesticides banned in the EC: DDT and BHC (also known as HCH). No information is available for exports of technical grade products. Technical grade products are the pure chemical substances to which other chemicals are added to make formulated products. Many pesticide companies produce not only formulated products but also large quantities of the technical grade chemicals for export to formulation companies (often company subsidiaries) in the destination country. Although the new EC Regulation applies to the technical grade product of the chemicals concerned, Ms. Dinham found that companies do not have to declare bulk technical grade exports in trade reports. The Danish company Cheminova is one of the world's leading producers of the highly hazardous insecticide parathion. Parathion is not banned by the EC so it does not require an export notification. It will, however, be included in the international PIC mechanism. Cheminova exports ninety-nine per cent of its parathion, yet Ms. Dinham found that Danish trade statistics do not reveal any insecticide exports for any company and hence do not indicate that Cheminova exports any parathion. Because Cheminova exports parathion as a technical grade product for formulation in other countries, it does not have to reveal export data. Trade statistics from importing countries reveal that Venezuela imported 280 tonnes of parathion from Denmark in 1989, and Brazil imported 30 tonnes of insecticides from Cheminova in 1989. In Conclusion Unless the EC takes full responsibility for phasing out production of banned pesticides, European chemical companies will continue to exploit markets in countries like Albania where access to information about the dangers of pesticides is limited. Greenpeace is calling on the EC to categorically prohibit the trade in banned substances, quickly strengthen enforcement mechanisms, and fully disclose production and trade records of substances listed on the international PIC procedure. (Sources: Council Regulation (EEC) No 2455/92 of 23 July 1992 concerning the export and import of certain dangerous chemicals, Official Journal of the European Communities No L 251/13-22; Reference numbers for the notification of the export of certain dangerous chemicals, Official Journal of the European Communities No C 53/3-5; Guideline 12(c). Rose, G. 1992. Prior Informed Consent: Hazardous Chemicals. RECIEL Vol 1 No 1, Foundation for International Environmental Law and Development, London; Dinham, B., (Compiled by) 1993. The Pesticide Hazard: A Global Health and Environmental Audit. Zed Books, London.) What We Can Do To Stop This Dangerous Trade! The Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign has lists of: * Substances banned by the EC * Substances on the international PIC procedure * Notifications of banned substances exported from the EC since 1989 (about 90 in total). The list includes current export reference numbers, chemical names and destination country names. If you would like this information please contact the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, Greenpeace International Annex, Temple House, 25/26 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2LU. In turn, Greenpeace needs your help in monitoring pesticides used in your country. Please send information to Greenpeace at the same address concerning the use or production of pesticides either banned in the EC or on the International PIC list. If pesticides included in the International PIC list are still in use in your country, urge your Government to participate in the International PIC scheme and prohibit their import. The Netherlands Ratifies the Basel Convention On April 16, 1993, the Netherlands ratified the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. The Netherlands joins France as one of two EC member states to ratify the convention. The convention will take effect in the Netherlands on July 15, 1993. (Sources: Greenpeace Netherlands, Ministerie van Volkshuisvesting Ruimtelijke Ordening en Milieubeheer (VROM), 28 April 1993). The 94 Countries Which Strictly Prohibit Waste Trade Algeria, Angola, Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Lithuania, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Rwanda, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & Grenadines, Sao Tome & Principe, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, Surinam, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Tuvalu, Uganda, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Western Samoa, Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe. The 44 Countries Which Have Ratified the Basel Convention Antigua & Barbuda, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cyprus, Czech & Slovak Federal Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, India, Iran, Jordan, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Maldives, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Panama, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates, and Uruguay. Toxic Waste Trade Asia and the Pacific Plastic Wastes Accumulate in Indonesian Ports The last issue of the Toxic Trade Update reported that in November 1992, the Indonesian government banned the import of plastic waste. Despite Indonesia's call for other countries to take care of their own plastic scrap, illegal shipments of plastics have been piling up in ports in Jakarta, Surabaya and Medan. As of April 23, 1993, Indonesian port authorities had impounded more than 200 shipping containers holding some 5,000 tonnes of illegally imported plastic wastes. The Indonesian government's environment agency, Bapedal, launched an investigation into the mounting plastic waste trade problem and found that although waste traders earmarked the plastic for recycling, 30% of the waste was non-recyclable and a further 10% was officially designated as hazardous and toxic. While Port authorities continue to impound the illegal shipments of plastic waste, the Indonesian government searches for a solution to the growing plastic mountain. A government task force overseeing the waste problem has considered three options for handling the problem: auctioning the waste, incinerating the waste, and returning the waste to its senders. On April 22, 1993, President Suharto canceled plans to auction off the waste. President Suharto's announcement coincided with a rally by Indonesian environmentalists and members of waste scavenger associations outisde the Attorney General's office in Jakarta. Protesters unfurled a huge banner reading "Dump the imported plastic scrap and toxic waste out of the country." They called on the Indonesian government to send the wastes back to the exporting countries such as the Netherlands, Germany, and the U.S. The idea of returning the wastes to their senders is not new to Indonesian legislators. In January 1993, a leading member of the Indonesia House of Representatives, Markus Wauran, called for the plastic waste to be returned. He said that "importers must return used plastics now dumped at the ports of Tanjung Priok in Jakarta, Tanjung Perak in Surabaya and Belawan in Medan." Greenpeace and WALHI (The Indonesian Forum for the Environment) are calling on the plastic waste exporting countries to bear the costs of cleaning up and retrieving the wastes from Indonesia. "Indonesia is not a dumping ground for the rich countries of the world," said Simon Divecha, Greenpeace's Toxic Trade Campaigner. "The Indonesian environment and people should not have to suffer from the excesses of the heavily industrialized West." Greenpeace investigated several plastic scrap recycling centers and found that, since the November import ban was imposed, many plastic waste importers in Indonesia had abandoned their facilities. Now the recycling facilities are littered with thousands of tonnes of plastic wastes which carry industrial names such as BASF, Compo, Aldi, DuPont and Solvay. (Sources: Report from Bapedal to Junior Minister for Finances, August 18, 1992; Plastic Waste Invasion to Indonesia, Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign report, March 1993; Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign Investigation, April 1993; WALHI Interviews, February and April, 1993; Jakarta Post, January 28, April 23, 1993; Media Indonesia, May 4, 1993.) U.S. Toxic Wastes in Bangladesh May Come Home Soon At the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in May 1993, Greenpeace raised the issue of waste-contaminated fertilizer that US waste traders sent to Bangladesh. (See Toxic Trade Update 6.1) Because the ADB had provided funding for the fertilizer import, Greenpeace pressed the ADB to pay for surveys of the farms polluted by the waste, return the waste to the US generator, and insure that waste dumping under an ADB project would never happen again. Greenpeace also threatened to oppose the ADB replenishment (their re-funding by member governments) in 1994 if the ADB did not take swift action. Greenpeace notified the ADB's Executive Director, Environment Office, and project staff about the lead and cadmium-contaminated fertilizer used by farmers throughout Bangladesh in November 1992. Since November 1992, 3 ADB missions to Bangladesh have confirmed the findings of Greenpeace and UBINIG. To date, however, the ADB has not removed one bit of the waste from Bangladesh. Greenpeace met with the Executive Directors of the ADB, the President, Vice Presidents, and all ADB staff associated with the issue at their annual meeting in May, in Manila, The Philippines. The Environment Office and Legal Department of the ADB agreed to implement policies which would require testing in the port of exit and establish standards for materials purchased under ADB projects. ADB staff are now working on a proposal to send hazardous waste experts to Bangladesh, assess the harm done to people on farms where the fertilizer was used, and remove the waste from Bangladesh. Greenpeace is calling on the original generator of the waste, Gaston Copper of South Carolina, to take full responsibility for the waste and retrieve it to the U.S. CEI Promotes Pyrolysis in Pacific Consolidated Environmental Inc. (CEI), the Hawaii-based firm that recently attempted to broker UNOCAL's contaminated soil shipment to the Marshall Islands, is now planning to build and operate what they call a "Pyrolytic Resource Recovery System (RRS)" on Likiep Atoll in the Marshall Islands. As part of this scheme, they will ship up to 20,000 tons per year of toxic wastes to Likiep. CEI has already received an operating permit for the plant from the Republic of the Marshall Islands EPA and they have fulfilled the requirements of U.S. law for exporting hazardous wastes to the Marshall Islands by submitting an official Notification of Intent to Export to the U.S. EPA. According to CEI, the RRS plant will take industrial wastes and turn them into nothing more than marketable products - gas, oil and carbon black. CEI claims that pyrolysis is different from incineration because the wastes do not come into direct contact with fire. But in reality, during pyrolysis, the wastes are subjected to very high heat which can generate some of the same pollution problems as incineration. Just like waste incineration, the pyrolysis of hazardous waste can form compounds such as dioxins and furans that are more difficult to destroy and may be more toxic than the original substances. Existing pyrolysis plants in the US have had difficulty marketing their products because they are contaminated with impurities. The people of the Marshall Islands, with limited natural resources and investment capital, are examining a wide variety of economic development options. Unfortunately, the available information suggests that the proposed Pyrolytic Resource Recovery System is not, in reality, a viable development project. "CEI stands to make huge profits by simply shipping waste to the Marshall Islands, regardless of how well the RRS does," said Greenpeace Pacific Campaigner Dave Rapaport. "If CEI's proposed RRS facility is built, the chances are great that the Marshall Islands will be stuck with a rejected technology, an inferior and contaminated supply of oil, gas and carbon black, and a growing stockpile of U.S. wastes in a totally unprofitable venture." CEI is said to be planning similar waste trade schemes in a dozen Pacific and Asian countries including Tonga, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. CEI was incorporated in 1990 by Ronald T.K. Morrison and Joseph Ray Halcomb. It operates out of a small Honolulu office. Also on CEI's Board of Directors is Bruce Huddleston, who was reportedly fired by UNOCAL for arranging UNOCAL's ill-fated shipment of petroleum contaminated soil to the Marshall Islands. (For more information on CEI's toxic trade activities, see Toxic Trade Update 6.1, p. 13.) (Source: Greenpeace Pacific Campaign.) Tonga Considers Another Dumping Scheme The government of the Kingdom of Tonga in the South Pacific is the target of a foreign waste dumping scheme. According to Bill Paupe, the Republic of Kiribati's honorary consul general in Honolulu, "apparently, the Tonga Government has approved, in principle, that a remote island site could be used for hazardous waste disposal -- provided that the disposal is managed in conformance with U.S. EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] guidelines and regulations." Mr. Paupe said that a company called Sovereign International Services (SIS) Ltd. is brokering an agreement with the Tonga Government to find an EPA-approved U.S. company to set up the disposal site. Sovereign International Services was formed by a New Zealand businessman named Raymond Young and a Tongan landowner. One company contacted by SIS to set up the deal is Martinez Air Inc. which does business as Hazardous Waste Inc. (HWI) of Beverley Hills, California, and descibes itself as "part of a series of international corporations... [which] cover a wide range of commercial activities including import and export, real estate, general construction, aviation and hazardous waste management." A company document circulated in Tonga describes a Mr. Chizoma Onyems as Hazardous Waste Inc.'s "Director of Engineering." When contacted by Greenpeace, Mr. Onyems categorically denied being an officer of HWI. "Some individuals are using my name and consulting firm to purchase land in Tongo [sic] for dumping of hazardous materials. The document... is fake and unauthentic," Mr. Onyems wrote in a fax to Mr. Faupe. My company and I are not part of this disgraceful act. Hazardous Waste Inc. as purported by this fake document does not exist. I am not one of the directors as listed. I have not participated on [sic] do not intend to participate in such a fraudulent practice designed for the purpose of financial gains or exporting hazardous waste overseas. You must stop this so-called deal to purchase or acquire land in Tonga." Two self-described officers of HWI, Jose Luis Martinez and Jose Menendez, are apparently searching for other Pacific island dumpsites. According to Mr. Paupe, "these same representatives of Hazardous Waste Inc. have inquired about possible disposal sites in the Line and Phoenix Island groups of the Republic of Kiribati." Tonga has been the target of at least three other schemes to import foreign wastes since 1988, all of which were ultimately rejected by the government. These schemes would have brought sludge, toxic, medical, household and tire wastes to Tonga. The dumping proposals ranged from "filling volcano islands" to burning the wastes in incinerators. SIS and HWI's dumping plans are illegal under the Lome IV Trade and Aid Agreement. This Agreement, signed in 1989, bans all hazardous waste shipments to sixty-eight countries in the Pacific, Caribbean and Africa, including Kiribati and Tonga. Members of the South Pacific Forum are discussing the need to draft a regional convention banning foreign waste dumping throughout the Pacific, similar to Africa's Bamako Convention, and the Central American Agreement. Greenpeace feels that until the Pacific region makes a firm stand against waste imports, as have Africa and Central America, the region will remain the target of endless dumping schemes. (Sources: Greenpeace Pacific; Correspondence with Consulate of the Republic of Kiribati and Chizoma Onyems.) Guest Column Orchid Island: Taiwan's Nuclear Dumpsite A Case of Environmental Racism by Chen Dan-ken, Jun-yi and Piyao Lin This article presents an overview of the Orchid Island nuclear waste site in Taiwan, and its effects on the Yami people who live there. This is an excerpt from the "Nuclear Report from Taiwan" Volume 1, Number 2, March/April 1993. The Nuclear Report from Taiwan is a joint publication of the Anti-Nuclear Coalition for Taiwan and the Asian Ecological Society. For more information about Orchid Island and the development of the anti-nuclear movement in Taiwan, contact Nuclear Report from Taiwan, Box 843, Tunghai University, Taichung, TAIWAN, 40704. Telephone and fax: 886-4-359-5622. Off the coast of southeast Taiwan lie two small islands which, although geographically and historically quite different, share one distinction. They are both places where Taiwan sends its undesirables. One of them, Green Island, is famous for its prison for political prisoners. The other, Orchid Island, is where Taiwan dumps its mid- and low-level nuclear waste. Orchid Island, known as Lan Yu (in Mandarin) in Taiwan, lies 65 kilometers off Taiwan's southeast coast. It is the homeland of the Yami people, one of Taiwan's nine aboriginal tribes who lived in Taiwan for thousands of years before the Chinese settled here. The most isolated of Taiwan's aborigines, the Yami are also the only sea-faring people. They have no written language, only a small number of pictographs. The young generations today can communicate in Chinese and some have attained high levels of education in Taiwan. There are approximately 3,300 people in the Yami tribe, about 2,600 of which live on Orchid Island today. Many young people go to Taiwan, where work opportunities are more plentiful. The Need for a Nuclear Dump In the early 1970s, Taiwan's Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) convened a group of experts to examine various sites for a temporary storage facility for mid-level and low-level nuclear waste that would be produced by Taiwan's developing nuclear program. In 1974, this committee chose the Long Men (Dragon Gate) area on the southern tip of Orchid Island. A harbor was built in 1978, construction began on the depository site in 1980, and shipments began arriving in May of 1982. Since then, the site has been the depository for mid- and low-level nuclear waste from Taiwan's three nuclear power plants as well as nuclear research and medical centers. According to the AEC, over 82,000 containers, each weighing 55 kg, have been stored there to date. (The Orchid Island facility is only for mid- and low-level radwaste. Taiwan's spent fuel radioactive waste is stored at the nuclear plants themselves.) The reasons why Orchid Islands was found suitable for a nuclear waste dumpsite were the following: size: the dumping site is 1 square km; isolation: no people lived within a 5-km radius of the site; geography: the Long Men area is surrounded on three sides by mountains and the other side faces the sea; safety of transportation: ships could dock near the facility; final treatment: convenient for dumping the processed low-level radioactive waste into the ocean. (Some people feel that this was the main reason for the choice of Orchid Island. Between Taiwan and the Philippine lies the Bashi Channel, with one of the deepest sea trenches in the world.) Another unmentioned reason for selecting Orchid Island was that it was politically safer than most choices. An isolated aboriginal population ignorant of nuclear energy and modern political culture, the Yami knew nothing of atomic waste in the 1970s and were unprepared to fight against it if they had. The AEC kept them in the dark with lies and false promises about what they were constructing. The Yami were given no voice in the decision process, and became convenient victims of an authoritarian pro-nuclear policy. The terrible irony of this situation is that the Yami, living so far from Taiwan island, have no access to the power produced by nuclear energy. And yet the waste produced by Taiwan's nuclearization is being forced upon them. It is affecting their environment, and their traditional lifestyle. The fishing grounds and farming areas that they used to use near the dumpsite are now avoided, and the people live with the fear that their food source may become contaminated by radiation leakage. This and the knowledge that they have been deliberately tricked and exploited have an enormous psychological effect which colors their contact with Taiwan. A people who once lived a relatively carefree lifestyle, they now fear for their future on Orchid Island. Racial "NIMBY" The use of Orchid Island as a dumping ground for Taiwan's nuclear waste is the concept of NIMBY ("not in my back yard") on a national scale. Taiwan's nuclear program, a product of Taiwan's backwardly inefficient energy conservation policy, has little space on Taiwan to send its waste. So the waste which is the product of the people of Taiwan is being dumped on a small island tribe of some 3,000 people who don't even have access to the benefits of nuclear power and who were tricked into believing that the new site would be something which would benefit their economy. This is more than another reckless step in the desperate push to nuclearize Taiwan; it is the colonialism of the late 20th century. The colonialism of the last century exploited the resources of the colonized people. The environmental colonialism on Orchid Island today means dumping the garbage of our civilization onto a minority people. It is racial discrimination in practice on a national level. The nuclear waste depository is not the only example of the abuse of the Yami rights to their land and way of life. In the several decades after the Kuomintang [Nationalists who took control of Taiwan in 1949] came to Taiwan, a prison for severe criminals was operated by the Garrison Command, an internal police force under martial law. And today a more serious threat to their island looms in the government's plans to develop Orchid Island as Taiwan's fifth national park. Originally supposed to open in 1989, the park has been slowed by strong opposition from the Yami, who have never benefitted from the Taiwanese controlled tourist industry. The plan is to convert the whole island into a park, including an exhibition hall intended to publicize the safety of nuclear energy! Some Yami are skeptical about government claims that the project is to promote tourism; they believe the real purpose is to convince the Yami that they have no reason to worry about the safety of the nuclear waste dump. Another fear is that the government plans to limit access to the island under the jurisdiction of national park policy. As this issue was going to press, the Yami were holding protests in Taipei at the National Legislature and the Ministry of the Interior to protest against the proposed park. The Yami people opposed to the nuclear waste site claim that it is an infringement on their rights and their way of life. Traditionally, the Yami have been a self-sufficient society, relying on agriculture (primarily taro), and fishing for their food. Now they feel these two food sources are threatened by leakage from the waste site. They are concerned about radiation in the soil and sea contaminating their food sources. Many of them are now scared to eat fish or seafood. Furthermore, they fear that the development of a national park will change their way of life forever. In the end, many are worried that they may not be able to stay on Orchid Island permanently. In the words of Chung Jia-shan, the Yami church elder, "We are concerned about our destiny and our existence as a race." In April, 1990 at the first-ever Earth Day ceremony held in Taiwan, a Yami chieftain was invited to take the stage to speak about the plight of his people. Wearing full traditional dress, he spoke in his native language translated into Chinese, "There is no high culture, and there is no low culture. There are no high people, and there are no low people. We in this world are all the same. But Taiwan, by dumping its nuclear waste on our small island, is saying that the Yami are a lower people." Then he asked, "Do you know how Yami people act when they are angry?" What followed might be described as a dance of repressed anger, of grimaces, groans, stomping and thrashing gestures, a powerful expression of sadness and pain and fury at the injustice committed against his people. Eastern Europe Toxic Waste Scandal in Ukraine Greenpeace Toxic Trade researchers from Germany and Ukraine report that since January this year, German waste traders have transported two hundred and thirty tonnes of toxic chemical wastes to Ukraine. Exporters have labelled the highly hazardous chemicals as "industrial goods for further use." German authorities know about the dangerous stockpile but have not yet commited to bringing their wastes home, as they did in Romania in March 1993. In January 1993, the German waste trading company Rimex sent 230 tonnes of various kinds of toxic wastes and chemicals to the Ukrainian town of Rovno. The waste included three barrels (about 180 kg) of extremely toxic mercury wastes; chemical reagents (expired in 1976 and 1978); waste paints containing heavy metals; outdated pesticides; wood preservatives; pure DDT; prussic acid (hydro cyanic acid); laboratory chemicals and pharmaceuticals in glass containers and cardboard boxes; and red and white phosphorus which can ignite at any time without outside influence. Rimex declared the wastes it exported to Ukraine as "building materials" and "consumer goods." Rimex did not declare the mercury waste at all. Greenpeace found the foul-smelling wastes in barrels at a military barracks in the western Ukrainian city of Rovno. Rimex had stored the wastes on the grounds of the transport company Autotrans, but after local officials decided they were too dangerous to the environment and public health, they moved the wastes to a military base. Most of the barrels have leaked and guards at the storage site have complained about noxious fumes coming from the wastes. "We are getting sick merely being close to these stinking chemicals," reported one of the guards. Local nature protection prosecutor Mr. Shokalo has stated that he is unable to prosecute any of the parties involved in the case because at present there are no laws regulating such practices in Ukraine. "There are no disposal facilities available in the region to deal with this type of toxic waste so it should be sent back or anywhere away from here," said chief of the Rovno regional Environment Protection Department Mr. Bezkorovainiy. The Ukrainian Security Service has begun an investigation into the case. However, under current Ukrainian legislation, officials can only instigate criminal proceedings for the mercury smuggling. The Ukrainian Secret Service, the country's successor to the Soviet KGB, has temporarily confiscated part of the consignment, 180 kilograms of metallic, liquid mercury. Although none of the German companies is officially registered as a legal commercial enterprise, environment ministries in Saxony Anhalt and Bonn have known about all of them since August 1992. The police in Saxony Anhalt and Berlin obtained specific information proving that the companies were searching for toxic waste to export to Eastern Europe. In August 1992, Ukrainian border patrols refused entry to a Rimex truck carrying 78 barrels of expired anti-corrosion agent disguised as "paraffin." On November 14, 1992 Polish customs authorities stopped a Siebrands company truck loaded with 17 tonnes of old chemicals, paints and glues. The Polish authorities immediately informed the German government about the attempted waste trade scheme, but it is unclear how German officials responded. "The federal government has obviously not learned its lesson from the waste repatriation action in Romania," stated Greenpeace Germany Toxic Trade campaigner Andreas Bernstorff. "On the contrary, it has collaborated with the crooks, and drafted national legislation to implement the Basel Convention which provides a gaping loophole." Under the proposed legislation Germany will continue to allow toxic waste exports for reuse and recycling purposes. Waste trade schemes such as the dumping of chemical wastes at the military base in Ukraine will be perfectly legal as long as the exporter claims some further use. "Parliament must close this 'recycling loophole' in the draft legislation immediately to stop waste dealers from polluting Eastern Europe daily and not being punished," said Mr. Bernstorff. On June 10, 1993, Ukrainian environmentalists protested the dumping of German wastes in their country. Activists dressed in white uniforms unfurled a banner which said, "Mr. Kohl, take toxic waste back!" in both Ukrainian and German. (Sources: Greenpeace Germany, Greenpeace Ukraine.) German Waste Out of Romania! Germany has retrieved 430 tonnes of pesticides waste that had been dumped in Romania in 1992. (See Toxic Trade Update 5.1, p. 14 and 6.1, p. 15 for more information on this scandal.) Some of the wastes have been incinerated, while some has been stored in salt domes. (Source: Greenpeace Germany.) Finnish and German Wastes Dumped Estonia Estonia has become a popular waste dump site for Western Europe. Greenpeace and other environmentalists have disclosed that the Baltic country has received thousands of tonnes of used tires and chemical wastes from Germany and forty tonnes of used mercury lamps from Finland. Estonia is the only independent Baltic state that allows waste imports. Both Lithuania and Latvia have banned all imports of hazardous waste - even for recycling - in their waste law. Greenpeace Returns Finnish Mercury Wastes On June 29, Greenpeace returned a barrel of mercury contaminated wastes to the Finnish Ministry for the Environment in Helsinki. The waste originated from Finnish mercury lamps which were exported to Estonia for "recycling" earlier this year. Greenpeace and the Estonian Green Movement earlier discovered that a recycling plant in Tallinn was storing some of the liquid mercury, while the rest of the contaminated waste was dumped at a local landfill. "The case is a good example of how a Western country exports its waste to a non-OECD country," Greenpeace spokesperson Rune Eriksen said. "Loopholes in the Basel Convention make it possible for Western countries to export waste to developing and non-OECD countries and call it recycling. In cases like this, recycling is just another name for waste dumping." Greenpeace urged the Finnish authorities to cancel their mercury waste dumping contract and bring back all the waste already exported to Estonia. Finland voted last year at the Nordic Council meeting to recommend Nordic governments to "immediately ban exports of hazardous wastes to non-OECD countries irrespective of the purpose for which they are exported and including wastes exported for recycling." Asean Trade Import Export Schemes Extensive investigations conducted by the Estonian Green Movement and the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign reveal that used tires are but one of many wastes a German waste trading company has dumped in Estonia under the pretext of recycling. (See Toxic Trade Update 6.1, pp. 16, 17). The Asean Trade Import Export Gmbh (ATG) exported over 200 tonnes of waste solvents, plastic residues, paint and varnish lacquer residues, and animal and vegetable fats to Estonia allegedly for recycling purposes. On February 27, 1992, the Estonian Ministry of Industry and Energy issued ATG an import permit for the wastes but four months later, the Ministry of Environment revoked the permit. The environment ministry was concerned about potential sham waste recycling schemes in the country, but ATG managed to get some wastes into Estonia before its license was revoked. Customs papers indicate that all the waste was imported by an ATG affiliate, United Products. Spent solvents ATG claims that the solvent wastes were to be treated in compliance with German waste treatment regulations. United Products was supposed to treat 1,000 tonnes of contaminated solvents over a period of five years, and produce heavy oil products from the wastes. However, investigations by Greenpeace and the Estonian Green Movement revealed that the wastes were not recycled but stored in containers and many of them were leaking. For a long period nobody knew the exact location of the wastes, but Greenpeace and the Estonian Green Movement have traced most of it. According to the Estonian Ministry of Industry and Energy, ATG sent 112 tonnes of paint and solvent wastes to Estonia, 35 tonnes of which sit in containers at Muga harbor, and another 52 tonnes of which remain at the industrial complex of Dvigatel. Dvigatel once manufactured nuclear reactors like the one at Chernobyl. After the disaster at Chernobyl, Dvigatel's nuclear reactor production stopped, but the company is still manufacturing some nuclear equipment. Mr. Galkin, Executive Director of Dvigatel, told Greenpeace that United Products promised to deliver machinery for recycling, but nothing has happened. Mr. Galkin has asked United Products to take back the waste. UP answered that they will either deliver the equipment for recycling soon or will transport the drums away. Plastic residues The Ministry of Industry also said that ATG exported 14 tons of plastic residues to Estonia. Twelve tonnes of the plastic wastes sit at Dvigatel. ATG and United Products planned to import 20,000 tonnes of plastic scrap from contaminated chemical containers over a period of five years, and to process them into plastic pipes for use in urban sewer systems. A scientific laboratory at Dvigatel discovered warning labels on the plastic scrap indicating that much of it was old packaging for highly hazardous materials. Scientists from the laboratory washed some of the plastic scrap and then conducted an analysis of the water. They found that the water contained chromium, sulphur dioxide, phosphorus and phenols. A subsequent analysis of the air in the waste storage room revealed hydrocarbons, xylene, formaldehyde and sulphur anhydrides. United Products sold two tonnes of the plastic wastes to Estiko- Kommerts in Tartu, Estonia. A subsidiary of this company, Estiko Plasta, recycled the plastic waste into packaging material and distributed them in Kiev, Ukraine. A recent Greenpeace investigation at Dvigatel revealed that between 30 and 40 bags (approximately 6-8 tonnes) of the plastic waste were missing from the waste stockpile. Greenpeace has not determined what happened to the wastes. Animal and Vegetable Fats ATG and United Products also planned to import 20,000 tonnes of "animal and vegetable fat residues over a period of five years, and to sell them to unnamed companies for soap production. Again, the waste traders claimed that the fats would be processed in accordance with German regulations. Like the solvent wastes and the plastic wastes, the fat residues remain in storage facilities. United Products has stored 50 tonnes of the waste in containers in Muga Harbour, and 25 tonnes in the Dvigatel storage facility. The barrels of waste read "ICI Special Chemicals, Fetthaltige Reststoffe Tenside." Paint and varnish lacquer residues The demand for paints and varnishes is very high in Estonia. ATG and United Products saw a significant market for paint and varnish lacquer residues so they planned to import 120,000 tonnes of the wastes over a period of five years. United Products brought 25 tonnes of paint wastes to Tallinn in 1992, and sold them to a company called Liik AS which subsequently sold the wastes as "paint" to the Baiserken Universal Trade Centre in Kazakstan. (Sources: Estonian Green Movement; Greenpeace Finland; Greenpeace Sweden; Greenpeace Germany; Ministry of Industry and Energy of the Estonian Republic, April 23, 1993, Doc. Nos. 3-1/709-1, 3-1/709-5, 3-1/709-6, 3-1/709-8; Metallist March 9, 1993; Estiko-Plasta April 23, 1993; Dvigatel April 23, 1993; Liik AS.) Latin America Local Activists and Greenpeace Wage Campaign against U.K. Waste Dumping in Mexico and Bolivia By Madeleine Cobbing and Kerry Rankine Greenpeace UK's Toxic Trade campaign discovered in March that over 500 tonnes of highly toxic waste were due to be shipped to Mexico from the closed Capper Pass site in Humberside, in the Northeast of England. Greenpeace's discovery came in time to halt the waste shipment, but subsequent investigations by Greenpeace campaigners in Latin America discovered that over 600 tonnes had already been shipped to recycling plants in Mexico and Bolivia -- plants with notorious environmental track records. Capper Pass, a subsidiary of the multinational mining and metals company, Rio Tinto Zinc, still plans to export a total of 3,500 tonnes of toxic furnace dust currently stored at its abandoned U.K. smelter. Neighbors of the Latin American dumpsites are calling for the return of the wastes to the U.K. Residents of Oruro, Bolivia, held a road blockade to protest the transfer of U.K. wastes to their country. Greenpeace Investigation In March 1993, Greenpeace activists traced several containers of waste from the Capper Pass site to the port of Felixstowe in East Anglia. Twenty-six containers of Capper Pass waste were scheduled to be shipped to a recycling plant in Mexico owned by Metales Potosi. Greenpeace activists in inflatable rafts conducted a Toxic Trade Patrol in the Felixstowe port to track down the exact location of the Capper Pass waste and prevent it from being exported. Greenpeace alerted national and international press and called upon the UK Environment Minister, David MacLean, to halt the impending shipment. The History of Capper Pass' Wastes The Capper Pass tin smelter in Humberside started operations in 1937. In 1967, Rio Tinto Zinc Corporation bought the Capper Pass Company, and expanded the Humberside smelting operation. In the 1980's, concerns that the emission of heavy metals and radioactivity from the plant could be leading to clusters of ill health in local populations lead to increasing criticism of Capper Pass. In 1984, Greenpeace highlighted Capper Pass's discharging of high levels of arsenic and cadmium into the Humber Estuary. In 1987, Greenpeace sampled the stack emissions with a mini-helicopter and discovered that the radioactive element Polonium 210 was being emitted. And a report in 1991 investigated a cluster of childhood leukemia and tumors in the area surrounding the plant. The health experts found that there was a significant increase in the risk of developing central nervous system tumors for those living close to the smelter. Rio Tinto Zinc unsuccessfully attempted to sell the company. The closure of the plant was announced in February 1991, ostensibly for economic reasons, and its 600 foot high stack was demolished in early 1993. Local people in Humberside were shocked that the legacy of pollution from the Capper Pass site has been exported to Bolivia and Mexico. The waste consists of tin residues taken from the pollution control devices of the Capper Pass smelter. The waste effectively is a residue of a residue. After Capper Pass had recovered some metals from the tin and lead residues and ores sent to the plant, the remaining residues were burned in a secondary smelter. Over 3,500 tonnes of this waste from the pollution control devices of this secondary smelter have been stored on site for several years. On March 10, 1993, Greenpeace collected a sample of the wastes being stored on site at Capper Pass. The main constituents of the waste were sodium, sulphur, tin, zinc, arsenic and lead. The waste also included trace elements of nickel, copper, gallium, manganese, chromium, vanadium, silver and iron. The large number of trace elements indicates the complexity of the waste, which increases its potential to pollute the environment from any reprocessing operation. Byproducts from the smelting of these metals will be emitted into the environment in the form of atmospheric emissions or solid residues. The recovery of lead and zinc from such wastes is a highly polluting enterprise creating vast amounts of slags and fugitive emissions. Other smelters, designed to deal with the same sort of waste as the Capper Pass facility, which were operating in industrialized countries, have also been closed recently. Mexico and Bolivia are probably the only places in the world where these sorts of wastes are still reprocessed and ultimately dumped into their air and land. The Mexico Plant Records from Humberside County Council Waste Regulation Authority show that in October 1992 two shipments totalling 39.9 tonnes of this waste labeled as "tin slag" were exported to the Metales Potosi plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. In April 1992, the ecological authorities of SEDESOL (Secretaria de Desarrollo Social) visited Metales Potosi and detected problems with high air emissions of metallic oxides which represented a serious threat to ecosystems and the public health. On March 24, 1993, federal environmental protection authorities (Procuraduria Federal de Protecion al Ambiente) visited the plant and found the same problems. The plant did not even have an inventory of toxic emissions, and the health department immediately, but temporarily, closed the plant. A U.K. scientist estimated that, if the 530 tonnes of Capper Pass wastes planned for shipment in March had arrived in Mexico as planned, 12.72 tonnes of arsenic would have been released into the local environment. The Bolivia Plant Greenpeace discovered that Capper Pass shipped 600 tonnes of waste to Bolivia between October 1992 and February 1993. The six separate shipments of the waste went to Funestano, a lead and tin smelter high in the Andes. Unlike Capper Pass, Funestano operates without any air emissions filters. According to Funestano, 198 tonnes of the waste has already been burned. The Civil Committee of Oruro has asked the government of Bolivia to return the wastes to the U.K. On June 4, the government of Bolivia committed itself to re-export the wastes if it "has been proved by laboratorial and metallurgical analysis that these materials are highly hazardous and contaminating." Political Context The waste shipment was scheduled to leave the U.K. on the same day that EC Environment Ministers met to discuss a Danish proposal to ban the export of all toxic wastes to developing countries. The Danish proposal was thrown out - largely as a result of the U.K. and German government's opposition. Germany is also a major waste exporter. The U.K. is a major importer and exporter of hazardous wastes. In 1992, the U.K. exported over 83,000 tonnes of toxic wastes to developing countries. Mexico bans waste imports for disposal, but it allows imports for recycling. The government of Bolivia allows waste imports for recycling or recovery purposes. The case of waste imports to the Funestano facility, however, has alerted Bolivia to the need for strict legislation banning the import of all wastes. The permissive laws of all three countries mean that Mexico and Bolivia remain threatened by toxic waste imports from the U.K. and elsewhere for the foreseeable future. Capper Pass officials have said that they will "continue to seek the most appropriate, responsible and safe way of handling the material, which does not preclude export to a smelter properly capable of processing it." Greenpeace and activists in each country continue to monitor Capper Pass, Metales Potosi and the Bolivian importers, and are calling for the wastes already dumped in Mexico and Bolivia to be returned to Capper Pass. (Sources: Greenpeace UK; Greenpeace Mexico; Greenpeace Latin America.) Honduras Rejects Shipment From Houston Dump The Honduran government has rejected a scheme to ship toxic waste -- more than 25 tons of shredded auto tires, currently piled in an illegal dump on the Houston Ship Channel -- from Texas to Honduras for incineration. Three Houston tire shredding companies, subsidized by consumer taxes collected under the Texas Water Commission's Waste Tire Recycling Program, have been trying to cut a deal for the burning of over 25 tons of their wastes in an unidentified cement kiln in Honduras. Environmentalists in both Honduras and Texas have condemned the scheme, both on the grounds that tire burning releases deadly poisons into the environment and that Honduran law prohibits the import of hazardous wastes. On June 22, 1993 Greenpeace activists from Honduras and the U.S. occupied the tire dump, at Pier 8 of the Port of Houston, and demanded that the shipment be stopped. Alerted by the protest and the release of a Greenpeace report, ***Wheels of Misfortune*** which outlined the scheme, the Honduras government denounced the plan and said it would halt the shipment. In Tegucigalpa on June 25, 1993 Dr. Carlos Medina, commissioner of the Honduras Commission on Environment (CONAMA) declared that "the importation of scrap tires for energy, presents an environmental danger for the population and environment of our nation." "Based on the General Law of the Environment in which the importation of toxic material to the territory is banned, and based on the Regional Accord on the Transboundary Movement of Dangerous Wastes, signed and ratified by Honduras, which prohibits the transit and importation of potentially toxic wastes, we reject the importation of scrap tires from Houston, Texas, U.S., to the country," said Medina. Neither Greenpeace, CONAMA nor the Texas Water Commission have been able to identify the Honduran company responsible for the waste importing scheme. Greenpeace has asked CONAMA to pursue a vigorous prosecution of the parties involved. "This victory proves the resolve of the people and governments of Central America to halt the on-going waste invasion from the North," said Erwin Garzona, toxic trade campaigner for Greenpeace Central America. "We once again urge the state of Texas and the government of the United States to respect our wishes, and ban all toxic waste exports." "Not only is it unjust and illegal for the United States to dump its waste on our Central American neighbors, it doesn't make sense," said Connie Murtagh, toxic trade campaigner for Greenpeace US. "Shipping our waste abroad doesn't solve the waste crisis, it just shifts the burden to another country." (Source: Greenpeace Central America; Greenpeace in the U.S.) Radioactive Waste Shipped Through the Panama Canal and the Caribbean Since 1985, more than 40 shipments of nuclear wastes have traveled from Japan through the Panama Canal and the Caribbean to France and the UK. An estimated 9 such shipments have made the reverse journey. The Japanese nuclear power industry sends the spent nuclear fuel to preprocessing plants in La Hague, France and Sellafield, UK in order to recover plutonium. The most recent shipment occurred in late May 1993, when the nuclear cargo ship ***Pacific Pintail*** transported approximately 90 tonnes of the radioactive waste from Japan to the UK. The Greenpeace vessel ***Gondwana*** tracked the ***Pacific Pintail*** through the Caribbean up to the Mona Passage between the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. The ***Pacific Pintail*** is one of five vessels owned by the British firm Pacific Nuclear Transport Limited (PNTL) which is dedicated to the transport of the dangerous cargos between Japan and Europe. In response to a plutonium shipment along this route last year, nations in the Caribbean and Latin America raised intense protest against the passage of shipments of plutonium and other radioactive cargoes. Numerous Caribbean countries opposed the shipments of such materials, and the regional heads of state of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) issued a joint declaration in October 1992 against all nuclear shipments. The declaration stated "that shipments of plutonium and other radioactive or hazardous material should not traverse the Caribbean Sea." Greenpeace research indicates that at least five spent fuel shipments from Japan have been shipped to Europe for reprocessing since CARICOM issued its declaration. The separation of plutonium from spent nuclear fuel creates huge volumes of high level nuclear waste. Many countries in Latin America, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia also objected to the passage of the plutonium shipment through territorial waters. The Panamanian Government likewise expressed concern last year at the shipment of such a cargo through the Panama Canal. In May, members of the Greenpeace Central America and the Greenpeace Nuclear Campaign met with Panamanian president Guillermo Endara, the Environmental Commission at the Legislative Assembly, and the Canal Commission. Greenpeace asked Endara to take action to prevent transport of nuclear cargos through Panama. "We promise that the hazardous shipment of nuclear materials through Panama and the Caribbean will not take place in secrecy, said Beatriz Barraza, director of Greenpeace Central America. "The nuclear industry is seriously mistaken if it thinks it can quietly place the public and environment at risk with these dangerous shipments." Shipments of spent nuclear fuel, plutonium, and high level waste are scheduled to increase as part of faltering plans to increase the international plutonium trade. The UK government is currently reviewing plans to open British Nuclear Fuels Limited's new reprocessing factory called THORP (Thermal Oxide Reprocessing Plant), whose operation would require the transport of tens of tonnes of nuclear materials. A decision on THORP's operation is expected in the next few months in the face of growing opposition. In order to guarantee the economic viability of the trade in spent fuel and plutonium, the nuclear industry is supporting a decrease in the standards for shipment of highly radioactive materials. Participants at an April meeting of a UN working group on radioactive transport held at the pro-nuclear International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna proposed a new code which would allow the transport of spent nuclear fuel, plutonium, and high level waste on a range of ships, including passenger ships, ferries and general cargo vessels. (Sources: Greenpeace Nuclear Campaign; Greenpeace Central America.) German Wastes For Ecuador The Germany-based transnational corporation Starwise Ltd. and the Ecuadorian company Recipetroil, S.A., are proposing to ship German wastes to Guayaquil, Ecuador and to burn them in an energy generating incinerator. Environmental groups in Ecuador are calling on the government to reject the proposal. (Source: Greenpeace Central America.) Mediterranean The SS United States - From Pride to Poison By Roberto Ferrigno A vessel that was once the pride of the United States has become a plague on the shores of Istanbul. A US company sent the SS United States to Turkey almost one year ago to be stripped of its asbestos and refurbished into a luxury cruise ship. The SS United States, is a 300-meter, 42 year-old vessel whose cabins, restaurants and lounges have been stripped of everything of value. The ship's fittings, everything from silverware to shower fixtures, were auctioned in 1984 as the then owner tried to regain some of his investment. The United States' cavernous interior is now empty. Everything is gone. Everything but the asbestos. Engineers commissioned by the US government in 1951 designed the ship so it could be readily converted as a troop carrier. Because of the fire resistant qualities of asbestos, the ship designers used a lot of it. The ship is loaded with asbestos. Doors, walls, ceilings and floors, ventilator ducts and linings, structural supports, panelling, and even chairs and blankets were made with asbestos. According to the current owners, there are almost 300,000 square meters of asbestos on board, more than any other ship in history. "This ship has more asbestos on board that any merchant ship ever," said Leonard Jaques, Admiralty Lawyer and Engineering Officer on the SS United States' maiden voyage. "It has caused more asbestos disease in merchant mariners that any ship that ever floated." The Ship's History The SS United States served as a passenger boat for trans- Atlantic voyages until 1969, when escalating operating costs and airline competition forced it out of business. The US Maritime Administration took over the ship from 1972 until 1980 when Richard Hadley, the head of United States Cruises Inc., bought the vessel hoping to convert it to a cruise ship. In 1991, Mr. Hadley had to sell the ship because he was unable to raise the necessary US$200 million for the conversion. In April 1992, Marmara Marine Inc., a Turkish-backed company based in Delaware, US, bought the vessel for US$2.6 million. Three months later, Marmara Marine had the SS United States towed from the US to the Tuzla shipyard in Istanbul, Turkey, in order to remove the asbestos and refurbish the ship. According to Fred Mayer, Chief Executive Officer of Marmara, refurbishing the vessel over a 3-4 year period will cost US$160-180 million. If the project were done in the US, the removal of the asbestos alone could cost US$125 million. Mayer said the renovations done in Turkey would cost half what they would cost in Western Europe. Kahraman Sadikoglu owns the shipyard, and his wife is the main shareholder of Marmara Marine Inc. When asked about his intentions for disposal of the asbestos from the SS United States, Sadikoglu said that he would dig a hole somewhere and bury it. He added that if he was not assigned any government land to carry out this operation he would buy some land and do it there. Workers cleaning up the SS United States informed the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign that the ship rescue company Gemi Kurtamara Denizcilik Ve Truizm A.S., took them to the ship without any information about the dangers of asbestos or protective clothing. The company paid the shipworkers a bit more than usual but did not tell them why. Greenpeace feels that this ship is actually a floating coffin. Under current circumstances, the removal and disposal of massive quantities of asbestos waste represents a mortal threat to the Turkish workers and environment. "Hazards inevitably move towards areas with less strict regulations for health and environmental protection," said Mario Damato of Greenpeace's Mediterranean Campaign. The average wage of Turkish dock workers is US$2.00 per day. The average wage of US asbestos workers is US$10.00-30.00 per hour. The average disposal fee for asbestos in the US is US$600 per tonne. In Turkey it is free. Greenpeace met with Turkish Minister of Environment Dogancan Akyurek to discuss the issue of the SS United States. Mr. Damato stated, "The Turkish Government has always been on the forefront in the battle against the international transfer of hazardous substances. It should therefore stop this case as well." Minister Akyurek responded, "This is not a waste trade scheme. It might be an opportunity for our shipping industry. At present, it operates at only 15% of its capacity. Work on the United States may help the shipyards to overcome the economic crisis." The meeting ended with Minister Akyurek accepting that asbestos was a major national concern. "It has been widely used in Turkish industry, in buildings, and water pipes," he said. "Asbestos was cheap, and we did not know how dangerous it was for our people. We are trying now to get rid of it." The meeting appeared to be inconclusive, but two weeks later, in January 1993, Minister Akyurek told Reuter News Agency that the government would not permit the unloading of asbestos from the SS United States. "This is not a Turkish ship. We will not allow workers to unload asbestos removed from the SS United States in Turkey." Greenpeace requested that the US government recall the asbestos- laden ship to the US, but the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) denied any US jurisdiction over the ship. EPA did, however, send a letter to the Turkish authorities declaring it was "...willing to share with other nations the results of its risk and benefit analyses of asbestos-containing products. This analysis is based upon the risks and benefit associated with the use of such products in the United States, not in other countries." EPA more clearly explains its patronizing philosophy on the issue of toxic trade in a letter sent to a citizen who raised questions about the US Maritime Administration's on-going sales program of obsolete ships owned by the US. The EPA letter states, "It is likely, as you suggest, that some disposal of the vessel for scrap overseas will occur in the absence of the stringent health and environmental safeguards regularly practiced in our country. First, the EPA shares your belief that both safety and environmental precautions should be applied whenever asbestos... removal projects are undertaken. However such precautions that are required in this country may not be required in other nations... They may have legitimate, sometimes compelling, reasons for taking less stringent approaches... Other nations may also require fewer safeguards in vessel scrapping operations..." "EPA clearly endorses the toxic trade practices of industry," said Mr. Damato. "Rather than taking responsibility for polluting operations at home, it exports its problem at the expense of other countries and the global environment." Hazards of Asbestos Asbestos is one of the most carcinogenic substances known to science. Professor Irving Selikoff, of the Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, estimates that in the US alone over 400,000 people will die in the next 20 years from asbestos-related disease. Asbestos may cause up to 17% of all cancers in the US. Asbestos fibers kill people very slowly. They can kill anyone who has ever been exposed to asbestos dust. The most common cause of death from asbestos exposure is a cancerous lung disease called asbestosis. Of all asbestos-induced cancers, 80% occur in the lungs, 10% in the abdominal lining, and another 10% in other areas of the body, particularly the throat, intestine and stomach. The mechanics of asbestos death are fairly well known. It starts with a single asbestos fibre - an intensely strong hollow tube of microscopic proportions, which is approximately 2,000 times thinner than a human hair. When released, these tiny fibers do not settle like dust, they remain suspended in the air, deadly, invisible, needle sharp daggers which can be inhaled or ingested by unsuspecting workers or bystanders. The fibers then plunge into the lungs, throat, lung-lining, the stomach and intestines. In 1984 the US National Academy of Sciences issued a study which said that 9 people in a million would die from breathing air which contains a "normal" amount of asbestos fibers as opposed to the "abnormal" amount found in air in certain industries. Other studies suggest that the death rate could be as high as 350 per million. With this latter figure, 75,000 people in the US alone could die from cancer derived from breathing in asbestos in "normal" air. Researchers for the American Journal of Industrial Medicine, led by Luigi Giarelli of the University of Trieste in Italy, recently reviewed work histories of 162 people with malignant pleural mesotheliomas (cancers of the linings of the chest and abdominal cavities) between 1968 and 1987 and found 150 of them had occupational exposure to asbestos. Despite these alarming statistics, the construction industry continues to use asbestos. Approximately 80% of all asbestos used in the world goes into cement slabs and pipes, floor tiles and sheets of plastic. Over the past ten years, the asbestos mining industry has opened new mines, and has even obtained financial support from the United Nation Development Programme. Rather than funding research for alternatives to asbestos, most governments have sponsored stricter legislation on asbestos worker protection. Sweden and Denmark are the only countries which have banned the manufacture, import and use of the asbestos and asbestos-containing materials in any form. (Sources: Greenpeace International; Freedom of Information Act request RIN-01628-93; The Washington Times, January 20, 1993; Reuter, January 9, 1993; Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. 1992; Asbestos - Politics and Economics of a Lethal Product, written and researched for ICEF by Jeffery Harrod and Victo Thorpe, 1984.) North America Toxic Trade Patrol in Los Angeles Citizens of Los Angeles (LA), California joined Greenpeace on April 28, 1993 to declare their port a Waste Trade Free Zone for the day. The latest Greenpeace Toxic Trade Patrol blocked loading operations at the port of Long Beach/Los Angeles to protest the export of plastic waste collected in the City's municipal waste recycling programs. Throughout the LA area, citizens separate their plastic waste for alleged recycling. However, recycling centers end up shipping much of the waste to Asia. LA is the main exit point for plastic wastes from the United States. 1 Month of Plastic Waste Exports From the Ports of LA/Long Beach February 1993 To Shipments Metric Tons Hong Kong & China 71 2,457.3 India 3 328.1 Philippines 7 258.5 Bangladesh 1 10.4 Guatemala 1 1.7 Total 83 3,056.0 For the six months ending in February 1993, according to the Port Import Export Research Service, the twin ports shipped more than 33,500 tons of waste plastics to Asia, which the majority headed for China. "We're being duped," said Ann Leonard, a Greenpeace toxic trade campaigner. "The plastics industry wants us to feel good about using plastic, so they promote 'recycling,' when the truth is its being dumped on the Third World." The Greenpeace Toxic Trade Patrol slipped onto the dock in the early morning and mounted a stack of the massive containers. The patrol members locked themselves in place and shut down loading operations for the day. The Patrol also hung two protest banners. One read "Waste Trade Free Zone," the other read "Third World Dumping is Not Recycling." One of the biggest plastic waste collectors in southern California is Waste Management, Inc. (WMI), a company frequently fined for violations of environmental laws at its hazardous waste incinerators and other disposal facilities. Environmental activists in the U.S. often accuse WMI of "toxic racism" for its pattern of siting incinerators in communities of color. WMI collects LA's plastic waste under a subsidiary named Recycle America, which trucks much of it to facilities where the waste is sorted and exported overseas. "Recycle America should change its name to 'Dump on China,' because it's not recycling and it's not in America," said Ms. Leonard. Greenpeace officials urged city officials to renegotiate their contracts with waste handlers to ensure that no waste plastic is shipped overseas. They also demanded that California modify its law which requires a reduction in the municipal waste stream by 50 percent by the year 2000 but does not prohibit municipalities from reaching this goal by exporting their waste. "We are not trying to discourage legitimate waste reduction and recycling of paper and glass," said Ms. Leonard. "But when it comes to plastic, the only environmentally responsible thing people can do is stop buying it." Environmental activists in the Los Angeles area will continue this campaign to make their city a Waste Trade Free Zone. (Source: Greenpeace U.S.) Greenpeace USA has prepared a Community Action Kit for residents of the U.S. who want to make their community a Waste Trade Free Zone. The Kit explains international waste trade focusing on the trade in plastic waste, U.S waste export law, positive alternatives to disposable plastic, and provides numerous ideas and tools for developing a local campaign against international waste trade. To obtain this kit, please send $3.00 to cover production and mailing costs to the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Project, 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20009, USA. Quebec - Dumpsite for the United States U.S. industries continue to bypass national waste disposal regulations by sending their wastes to Quebec. The Stablex company in Blainville imports an estimated 60 - 70 thousand tonnes of toxic waste from the U.S. each year, while profits return to Stablex's American parent company, Concord Resources. Stablex recently applied with Quebec Ministry of the Environment to treat an additional 60,000 tonnes of toxic waste per year. Residents near the Stablex facility are becoming increasingly concerned about the landfill. In less than 25 years the Stablex site will reach capacity, and Quebec taxpayers will have to pay for clean-up and decontamination of the site which belongs to the Quebec government. Greenpeace, l'A.R.B.R.E. (Blainville Residents' Association for the Respect of the Environment), the Quebec Common Front for the Ecologic Management of Waste, and the Quebec Environmental Law Center denounced Stablex' request to increase waste treatment. "How much longer will we be fooled by Stablex and the Quebec Government over this matter?" asked Pierre Pelletier, president of l'A.R.B.R.E. of Blainville. "The citizens of Blainville and Quebec are fed up with being the biggest importers of American toxic waste in the world," explained Jean-Yves Guimond, president of the Common Front. "By importing US wastes into Quebec, Canada is not only allowing American companies to escape environmental laws, but also preventing implementation of real solutions, such as reduction at the source and clean production." (Source: Greenpeace Canada.) US Convicts Waste Traders In April, a US federal jury convicted two men of illegally exporting hazardous waste to Pakistan. (See Toxic Trade Update 5.2, pg. 17 for more information.) The conviction was the first of its kind under the federally mandated Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. Tariq Ahmad of Reno, Nevada and Rafat Asrar of Irvine, California exported the waste without notifying the US or Pakistani governments. The men were also convicted of arson, conspiracy to commit arson, mail fraud and perjury. They had intentionally set fire to their Shankman Laboratories facility in Chatsworth, California hoping to collect US$205,306 in fire insurance. Ahmad and Asrar hoped to avoid costly disposal fees for wastes from the fire by shipping them to Pakistan. It would have cost Ahmad US$80,000 to legally dispose of the wastes in the US, but exporting the wastes to Pakistan would have cost only US$1,800. "Federal courts in the US should be convicting all waste exporters, not just the ones who neglect to follow lax trade regulations," said Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaigner Ann Leonard. "The wastes Mr. Ahmad and Mr. Asrar tried to export were intercepted in Dubai and returned to the US for disposal. But the US government condones the indiscriminate dumping of all kinds of wastes throughout the Third World." Ahmad and Asrar face multi-million dollar fines as well as possible life imprisonment for their actions. (Sources: The Wall Street Journal, April 16, 1993; The Los Angeles Times, April 16, 1993; The Orange County Register, April 16, 1993; The Sacramento Bee, April 17, 1993.) Western Europe Denmark Halts Plans to Import German Waste The National Agency for Environmental Protection (NAEP) in Denmark has stopped plans to import 200,000 tonnes of German waste at the Egvad Recycling Center (ERC) in Jutland. (See Toxic Trade Update 6.1, p. 21.) Following appeals from environmental organizations, the NAEP agreed that the proposed recycling and incineration facility in Tarm, Denmark must be held in accordance with the EC Environment Impact Assessment Directive. Local authorities will therefore have to revise their proposal, this time with a more comprehensive assessment of the plans. The NAEP has not received a proposal from ERC to import the waste should a new permit be given and the proposed plant built. The NAEP has declined to say whether a permit would be issued. Ten thousand tonnes of waste from Germany has already been imported, and the municipality of Egvad has taken legal action to have the waste removed. (Source: Greenpeace Denmark, Ritzaus Bureau, April 29, 1993.) French Environmentalists Denounce the Import of German Waste On May 7, 1993 activists from Greenpeace and FRAPNA (Rhone-Alpes Nature Protection Federation) delivered nearly three tonnes of German plastic waste, all of it "gruene punkt" packaging waste, to the German Embassy in Paris. This was the latest of a series of activities in protest against the import of German waste to France. Germany exported the waste to France for recycling. The NIPSA recycling plant in the Isere region of southern France receives up to 500 tonnes of German packaging waste a month. Greenpeace investigations have shown, however, that instead of recycling all of the waste, the facility dumps nearly 75 percent of the waste at several sites in the region. Further research done in close collaboration with FRAPNA revealed a small amount of hospital waste (syringes, blood bags, etc.) mixed in with the plastic packaging waste. One worker at the plant was injured by a syringe in the wastes he was handling. The consequences of the injury are not yet known. The German packaging industry set up the "Gruene Punkt" or "Green Dot" system in response to federal regulations on waste disposal. A package marked with the "green dot" costs the consumer two pfennigs (about 1.2 US cents) extra. The extra charge is intended to cover collection and recycling costs, but German recycling facilities are incapable of dealing with the amount of waste generated there. The result is that a large amount of German waste, estimated at tens of thousands of tonnes each year, ends up in other countries. Greenpeace Toxic Trade investigators have found packaging waste marked with the German "gruene punkt" as far away as Indonesia. (For more information see the Greenpeace report, "Plastic Waste to Indonesia - the Invasion of the Little Green Dots". See Toxic Trade Resources section of this issue.) German businesses, manufacturers, and waste management companies pay foreign recycling factories to accept their extra wastes. In the case of NIPSA, money flows in with each new arrival of German waste but, given the plastics recycling situation in France, there is no financial incentive to actually recycle the waste. As a result NIPSA often dumps the waste in local landfills. "The EC countries are drowning in their own waste," said Pierre- Emmanuel Neurohr, Toxic Trade campaigner for Greenpeace France. "Fifty million tonnes a year alone is packaging waste, and the industry tries to hide this behind the myth of recycling. The only rational solution is to drastically reduce our frantic consumption of useless packaging." On August 18, 1992, then French Environment Minister, Segolene Royal introduced a decree which contains specific regulations regarding the import of domestic waste. However, it is by no means a complete ban on imports. France forbids imports destined to be dumped in landfills except in situations where bilateral agreements exist. Imports destined for incineration (or any other means of "elimination" other than landfilling) are permitted simply by obtaining an administrative authorization. Greenpeace and FRAPNA have sent a letter to Michel Barnier, French Environment Minister, asking him to amend the August 1992 decree by deleting the two clauses that weaken it. Greenpeace learned only minutes before delivering the plastic waste to the German Embassy, that NIPSA did not even have a permit to import wastes. Although the Regional Industry, Research and Environment Administration (DRIRE) knew about this, it did not attempt to stop the German waste imports. After a Greenpeace blockade at the plant however, French authorities refused entry to trucks carrying German waste and sent them back to Germany. According to recent DRIRE information, NIPSA has not yet applied for an import permit. Since NIPSA will no longer be permitted to dump most of its waste in local landfills, it appears that NIPSA will not apply for an import permit. The Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign in France believes this scheme should be an example for the local State authorities to deter them from issuing or renewing domestic waste import permits. (Sources: Greenpeace France; Greenpeace Germany; FRAPNA.) What is the German Green Dot? Packaging Directive In December 1991, a packaging directive came into force in Germany. It is intended to reduce the 15 million tonnes of packaging waste that accrue annually in Germany. The directive requires businesses and manufacturers to take back and recycle packaging in order to relieve pressure on waste dumps. The German government will implement the directive in phases until 1995. Since December 1, 1991 manufacturers and businesses have had to take back and recycle or reuse packaging used for transport, such as drums, boxes and pallets. Consumers have been able to leave extra wrappings, e.g. foil and cartons, behind in shops since April 1, 1992. And since January 1993, shops have had to take back all packaging in which items are sold, including soiled packaging such as yogurt containers. Between 1993 and 1995, collection of waste for disposal must be reduced to 50 percent of all waste generated. By July 1995, only 20 percent of all waste may be disposed, and the remaining 80 percent of all waste must be recycled. Sixty-four percent of packaging waste is supposed to be recycled. The German Dual System (Duale System Deutschland) Businesses and manufacturers can avoid the directive to take back packaging if they set up or join a private enterprise waste management system. To this end industry founded the Duales System Deutschland (DSD) waste management company. The "Green Dot" (Gruene Punkt) The DSD grants licenses to packaging manufacturers to use the "green dot" on products. Manufacturers pay license fees relative to the kind of packaging they make, and pass on their costs to customers. The "Green Dot" Encourages Waste Trade The DSD has guarantors for recycling different kinds of packaging that organize the recycling and set up contracts with waste management firms. The guarantor for plastic packaging is the "Verwertungsgesellschaft fuer gebrauchte Kunstoffverpackungen", or VGK (used plastic packaging recycling company). Plastics manufacturers such as Solvay, ICI, BASF and Bayer provide 37.45 percent of the funding for the VGK. Plastic processors provide 37.45 per cent of the support, and the waste management sector provides 25.1 per cent. As of October 1, 1993, the green dot will be more expensive. An average of 2.61 DM (US$1.60) per kg will be paid for plastic packaging. However, as the collection of plastic waste already costs over 2 DM per kg, very little money is left over for recycling. The money is just enough to finance transport to other countries or, as the plastic manufacturers would prefer, waste incineration. Toxic Products Trade Asia and the Pacific Japan Offers Cambodia Dangerous Pesticides as Agricultural Aid Responding to Cambodia's plea for assistance with rice production, Japan is sending the war-torn country 30 tonnes of dangerous pesticides including diazinon, fenvalerate and fenitrothion. Environmentalists and scientists from international aid organizations are critical of this donation, suggesting that training in integrated pest management (IPM) would be a preferable alternative to the indiscriminate dousing of rice fields with highly toxic chemicals. Farmers throughout Southeast Asia are realizing that the expensive pesticides they are advised to use on their crops can actually diminish their yields. The three pesticides Japan is giving Cambodia have a broad spectrum for the kinds of insects they can kill. When applied to agricultural areas, the pesticides kill insects that attack rice plants as well as insects that prey on rice-eating insects. The use of such biocides upsets the balance of the ecosystem, and allows insects harmful to the rice fields to flourish. (For more information on the problems of broad spectrum pesticides, see Toxic Trade Update 6.1, p.27.) Diazinon and fenitrothion are organophosphate insectidices. As a group, organophosphates cause the most pesticide deaths world wide. Exposure to these pesticides can cause damage to the human nervous system. Common symptoms of poisoning are headaches, nausea and dizziness. More severe cases result in vomiting, tremor, blurred vision, and an inability to coordinate movements. Studies have found that a single severe incidence of poisoning can result in the person suffering long term neural damage. Diazinon and fenitrothion also kill economically imporant species such as bees and fish. Fenvalerate is a pyrethoid insecticide. Its use in forests was discontinued in Sweden following numerous reports by workers of symptoms including itchy, burning skin, respiratory problems (sneezing, runny nose, coughing, difficulty breathing), and eye irritation. Pyrethroids are very broad spectrum insecticides and will kill virtually all orders of insects. The use of pyrethroids can worsen pest infestations by eliminating a pest's natural enemies. Indonesia has implemented an extensive program in integrated pest management and has reduced the use of pesticides in rice production by at least 60%. This figure has reportedly risen to 80%. Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaigner Latifa Satterlee says, "Japan should learn a lesson from the Indonesian experience. Instead of sending Cambodia dangerous pesticides such as diazinon, fenitrothion and fenvalerate, Japan should support a comprehensive integrated pest management program in Cambodia." (Sources: New Scientist, March 13, 1993; Greenpeace U.S.) Latin America Parathion Poisoning in Argentina Port During the last week of March 1993, a group of workers was unloading bags of the pesticide parathion from a ship in the harbor in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Three of the workers became sick, suffering from headaches, nausea and vomiting. Medical experts diagnosed the workers with parathion poisoning. Parathion is one of the most dangerous pesticides known to science. Scientists from Nazi Germany first developed parathion as a nerve gas during World War II. The World Health Organization now classifies parathion as extremely dangerous, recognizing that the majority of acute poisonings and deaths related to pesticides are attributed to parathion. Just a few drops of parathion can be lethal to humans. Due to the inherent dangers of parathion, 17 countries have banned its use, and 10 more have severely restricted it. A 1991 resolution by the Argentine Subsecretary of Agriculture prohibits the use of parathion for horticultural purposes. Argentine law permits the sale of parathion for other uses however, making it impossible to control the import and distribution. "As long as Argentina imports dangerous substances such a parathion, it will have to endure such accidents as the poisoning of dockworkers in the harbor of Buenos Aires," said Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaigner Mario Epelman. "Nothing short of a complete ban on parathion imports to Argentina will protect human health and the environment from one of the world's most deadly substances." (Source: Greenpeace Cono Sur.) Ecuador Narrowly Averts U.S. Pesticide Waste Dumping In 1992, the City of New Orleans, Louisiana in the southern U.S., was prepared to donate an obsolete stockpile of the pesticides DDT and BHC to Ecuador for malaria control. New Orleans even offered to pay half the cost of shipping the waste chemicals to Ecuador. The U.S. government banned the use of DDT and BHC in 1972 and 1976, respectively, due to concerns that the chemicals caused cancer and, in the case of DDT, severe ecological damage. By sheer luck, the hazardous export was thwarted when Steve Sackett from the office of the City of New Orleans contacted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to inquire about the legality of international trade in banned pesticides. The EPA reported that in June 1992, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock had exercised its rights, under the United Nation's Prior Informed Consent procedure, to reject imports of the DDT and BHC, and that such a donation would be contrary to the procedure. "New Orleans' generosity is really just dumping by another name," said Sandra Marquardt of Greenpeace's Toxic Trade Campaign. "Fortunately, the PIC procedure prevented this dumping scheme, but because the PIC procedure is only voluntary, it cannot be trusted to work in future cases. Until the U.S. government and other governments enact a global ban on the trade in toxic products, schemes like this will keep slipping through, dumping the industrialized world's poisons onto unsuspecting people." (Source: Environmental Protection Agency records; Greenpeace U.S.) North America Velsicol Continues Production and Export of Chlordane and Heptachlor At a June 18, 1993 meeting, Velsicol Chemical Corporation told Greenpeace that it would continue to produce the extremely toxic insecticides chlordane and heptachlor for export "so long as someone buys them." Velsicol is the world's sole producer of chlordane and heptachlor, two carcinogenic, chlorinated products whose markets are rapidly diminishing in the heavily industrialized world. Velsicol sells the pesticides to farmers outside the U.S., particularly in Third World countries, because all but one of the uses for the chemicals are banned in the U.S. In 1991, Velsicol exported almost 750 tons of chlordane and heptachlor to countries around the world. Despite worldwide concern about the environmental and human health effects of chlordane and heptachlor, Velsicol strongly affirms that its products are safe. "If I had the feeling in my guts the products were causing harm, I'd stop. I'd walk away," said David Frederick, a Velsicol vice president. The Toxic Impact of Chlordane and Heptachlor Trade Chlordane and heptachlor are primarily used for protecting homes, gardens, farms and underground cables from ant and termite damage. These two pesticides are so toxic that at least 53 countries ban or severely restrict their use, including all of the heavily industrialized countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Velsicol revealed in the meeting with Greenpeace that it had no research programs in place to develop alternative methods of termite control. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies chlordane and heptachlor as severely restricted. Currently, the only approved use of heptachlor in the U.S. is for underground cable treatments. In 1978, the EPA halted most agricultural uses of chlordane and heptachlor in the U.S. because both industry and independent studies showed that they were carcinogenic in lab animals, highly persistent in the environment and bioaccumulative in the food chain. EPA halted domestic sales of both pesticides for all urban uses in 1987, and stopped the use of heptachlor for seed treatment in 1989. These restrictions followed a series of environmental disasters, such as: * the feeding of heptachlor-contaminated mash to dairy cows in three U.S. states in 1986. The resulting high levels of heptachlor residues in cow milk forced farmers to destroy 470,000 gallons of cows milk. Levels of heptachlor in the breast milk of women who had consumed the milk reached twice the allowable standard. * In the spring of 1989, at least 400,000 chickens from a farm in Arkansas were slaughtered after they consumed heptachlor- contaminated mash. * Fish with high levels of chlordane in their tissues were found in rivers around the country, forcing officials to post signs prohibiting or warning against fishing. On such place where fishing was banned is the Tennessee side of the Mississippi River in Memphis, where Velsicol makes the poisons. One medical expert asserts that "there is hardly an animal, a body system or a process that cannot be adversely affected by exposure to chlordane and/or heptachlor." EPA considers both chemicals to be "probable human carcinogens." Scientists are also concerned that heptachlor may cause physical problems for babies such as low birth weight, premature birth, and delayed brain development. Third World farmers often use the two poisons innapropriately, endangering themselves, their crops and people who consume their produce. In Pakistan, heptachlor is used on sugar cane, while in Argentina it is used on potatoes and sorghum. Studies show worldwide contamination of the environment from chlordane, heptachlor and their break-down products, which bioaccumulate to the top of the food chain. Low to very high levels of chlordane compounds are found in oysters and cetaceans in the Atlantic Ocean. Up to 700 times the acceptable levels of chlordane was found in the fat of bottlenose dolphins washed ashore on the New Jersey coastline in 1987 and 1988. The compounds have also been found in the fat of polar bears in the Arctic which ate contaminated seals. Global Campaign Builds against Heptachlor and Chlordane Greenpeace has been working to stop the export of Heptachlor and Chlordane for several years. In 1987, Greenpeace and two groups in Memphis (where Velsicol makes the toxic products) and Chicago (Velsicol's headquarters) gathered 137,000 signatures petitioning Velsicol to stop production of chlordane and heptachlor. Concerned citizens have sent thousands more cards, letters and faxes to the company since last year. Velsicol's toxic exports have helped to spur the United States Congress to try to stop the "Circle of Poison," the cycle that occurs when pesticides too toxic for use in the country of manufacture are exported, poisoning workers and the environment overseas, to use overseas, and returning as toxic residues on imported food. U.S. legislators have been trying to stop Velsicol and other chemical companies from exporting their toxic pesticides since 1989, but their efforts have been thwarted by the Bush administration. Senator Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Representative Mike Synar (D-OK) have promised to reintroduce legislation prohibiting the export of banned, never registered, and almost banned pesticides. Vice President Gore and Office of Management and Budget Director Pannetta sponsored the bill last year when it was still in Congress, so it appears the Clinton Administration will look favorably on efforts to halt such exports. Amid mounting opposition to the production and use of chlordane and heptachlor, and despite evidence of their harmful effects on humans and the environment, Velsicol keeps manufacturing and exporting the chemicals from its Memphis, Tennessee plant. "Velsicol is ignoring scientific evidence and public criticism on all levels, so its refusal to stop exporting chlordane and heptachlor came as no surprise to Greenpeace," said Sandra Marquardt, a Greenpeace pesticides expert who attended the meeting. "The company is blind not only to its global environmental contamination, but also to its dying market." It appears that public and governmental opposition will ultimately determine Velsicol's fate. At the beginning of 1993, at least 48 countries had banned either or both of the products. Since then, the United Nations has instituted a Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure which empowers countries to refuse to import pesticides, such as chlordane and heptachlor, which are on the PIC list. (See related article on page 4.) Four more countries have banned imports of chlordane and heptachlor this year. What You Can Do! Write to Mr. Arthur Sigel asking him to immediately halt exports of heptachlor and chlordane. Velsicol Chemical Corporation, 10400 West Higgins Rd., Suite 600, Rosemont, IL, 60018. Write to EPA Administrator Carol Browner asking her to ban the use of heptachlor for cable treatment. Also ask her to support "Circle of Poison" legislation which will halt the export of all banned pesticides including chlordane and heptachlor. US Environmental Protection Agency, 401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC, 20460, USA. Write Vice President Gore and ask him to support the reintroduction of legislation that will prohibit the export of such pesticides. Remind him that he supported this legislation when he was a Senator in the US Congress. Vice President Albert Gore, The White House, Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, 20500, USA. Urge officials in your country responsible for pesticide registration to exercise their authority under the PIC procedure to prohibit the import of chlordane, heptachlor and all other pesticides on the PIC list. Toxic Technology Transfers As the World Burns - By Connie Murtagh Communities in the United States are breathing a sigh of relief after a recent announcement from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The new policy freezes the development of hazardous and industrial waste incinerators for 18 months while EPA officials develop tougher regulations. But this good news for the environment in the US undoubtedly means problems for Eastern Europe and the Third World. A growing number of incinerator manufacturers in the U.S and Western Europe are peddling their antiquated technologies in countries where regulations are lax or non-existent. Toxic technology traders are bolstering their markets in Asia, the Pacific, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Businesses involved in this dangerous trade promote their incinerators as "state-of-the art" waste disposal technologies that will turn waste into much- needed energy. Robert Massey, CEO of Consummat, a small-scale incinerator producer in the United States acknowledges the growth for exports, "We've received more inquiries in the past 30 days than in the past three years." Massey admitted that many of the inquiries come from countries in the Caribbean, Eastern Europe and Asia. Years of public opposition to waste incineration in Canada, the US, Australia and the UK have led to a glut in the incinerator market. After complete failure in the UK market, a consortium called Tiger Power Systems, owned in part by waste management giants Attwoods and Von Roll, has attempted to market "floating incinerators" in Albania, Peru, Lithuania and the West Indies. The municipal waste incinerators are designed to float in harbors and process 20,000 tonnes per day of waste. The Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign has developed an inventory of schemes to export waste incinerators to less industrialized regions of the world. The following are some of the most notable examples: Australia ---> Vietnam * The Australian firm Miltox, has submitted a plan to construct $350 million toxic waste "recycling facility" in Vietnam. According to the Business Times of Singapore, the facility will handle 120,000 of tonnes a year of toxic waste, mostly from other Asian countries. Miltox claims that residual oils, heavy metal contaminants, and organic and inorganic compounds, will be processed -- without residue or emission -- into "a lightweight pebble-type aggregate that can be used in the building industry." Greg Kennedy, Miltox's managing director, said that the Office of the Prime Minister in Vietnam was studying the plant. North America ---> South Africa * In 1990, after the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, Vulcan Iron Works of Wilkes-Barre, PA developed an incinerator under EPA guidelines to "clean-up" the mess. Exxon never used the incinerator. In 1992 Sidney Saunders, of Peacock Bay Environmental Services applied for a permit to operate the incinerator in South Africa. The permit was eventually rejected. United States ---> Asia and the Pacific * Olivine of Bellingham, Washington, proposed exporting a municipal waste incinerator to New Zealand. The incinerator would have an annual capacity of 300,000 tons, twice as much as the waste generated in the region. The company also exported incinerators to Indonesia and the Philippines in 1992. * A company called Shenandoah Manufacturing of Harrisonburg, Virginia, which is listed as a poultry and livestock incinerator firm, exported a medical waste incinerator to the Philippines in January of 1992. * Sea Cargo International from Bensenville, Illinois arranged a shipment of incinerators and incinerator parts to Hong Kong in February, March, April and May of 1992. * Consolidated Environmental Inc. (CEI) of Honolulu, Hawaii plans to export annually 14,000 tons of California's industrial wastes and used tires to the Marshall Islands. The wastes would be processed in a "pyrolysis" plant which CEI plans to build and operate. CEI claims the wastes will be recycled, recovered and eventually reused as asphalt throughout the Marshall Islands. The plan faces stiff opposition from local residents. (See related article on page 13.) * US-based Waste Management International (WMI) entered into two major joint ventures with Hong Kong and Indonesia to develop incinerators in those countries. WMI will own 70 percent of the Indonesian venture while Bimantara, an Indonesian firm headed by President Suharto's son, will own 30 percent. The Hong Kong facility is currently undergoing start-up tests. United States ---> Eastern Europe * In 1992, ThermAll, an incinerator manufacturer in Peapack, New Jersey, sold a second-hand U.S. incinerator for $130,000 to Latvia for use on toxic waste and sewage sludges. The incinerator is reportedly burning a number of toxic wastes, and the Institute of Physics and Energy in Latvia is conducting emissions tests. However, the Institute is not conducting tests on emissions of dioxin, one of the most toxic substances known to science that is present in emissions from all incinerators. * Last year the U.S.-based Satra Group, a company engaged in a number of disparate activities from marketing Coca-Cola in the C.I.S., to producing ferrochrome, to managing the Bolshoi ballet, proposed constructing a waste-to-energy incinerator in Bulgaria. Satra's plans called for the importation of US and European wastes. When Bulgaria rejected the proposal, Satra quickly resubmitted the plan to the Republic of Albania. Albania also rejected the proposal. United States ---> Latin America * At least two US export brokerage firms have been marketing incinerators in Latin America. The firm's business journal advertisements offer "a complete line of incineration systems for waste generated in hospitals, municipalities or industries." One of the companies, Intacorp, of Hollywood, Florida, has already shipped a complete incinerator to the Virgin Islands and incinerator parts to Mexico. * Olivine Corp. of Bellingham, Washington exported an incinerator to Chile in 1992. * Global Products International, an export broker in Miami, Florida, shipped an "Agricultural Incinerator" to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in January this year. * Eli Lilly, of Indianapolis, Indiana, exported "Industrial Furnace and Incinerator Parts" to Santos, Brazil, on March 22, 1992. * Amin Trade Company of New York planned to build two rotary kiln incinerators in Recife, Brazil. Amin Trade Company's plans to burn toxic industrial wastes including benzene, non-halogenated and halogenated solvents and clinical wastes from the U.S. and Europe were rejected by the government of Brazil in April 1992. * Two U.S. firms, Foster Wheeler and Solid Waste Management Co., proposed a "waste-to-energy" facility for Nicaragua. The incinerator would burn sludges, and use the energy to recycle U.S. wastes such as paper, plastic, glass, aluminum and other metals. The government of Nicaragua rejected this scheme in June 1993. Western Europe ---> Asia and the Pacific * Attwoods, a U.K. subsidiary of Canadian waste management giant Laidlaw, has proposed selling an incinerator to Malaysia. Attwoods' deputy chairman is Denis Thatcher -- husband of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. * An unnamed Austrian investor plans to build a US$300 million incinerator at a former U.S. military base in Subic Bay, the Philippines, as part of a comprehensive base conversion program. The incinerator would be capable of burning 100,000 metric tonnes of wastes annually. "We don't have all that much garbage so we are going to be importing it -- industrial waste, medical waste, what-have-you," said Alejandro Melchor, head of a base conversion task-force. * I Kruger of Denmark plans to build a massive landfill and incinerator facility in Bukit Nanas, Malaysia (see Toxic Trade Update 5.2., p. 14). Their plans are modeled after its Nyborg, Denmark, facility which, according to Greenpeace Denmark, is polluting the air and groundwater. The people of Bukit Nanas have organized against the proposed dumpsite. The Bukit Nanas Anti- toxic Waste Dump Committee say their human rights to clean air, clean water, and participation in decision-making are being violated by the Malaysian government. "Unless the international community comes to our aid, we will become the direct victims of industrial development in Malaysia, as our right to be consulted and to free speech has been violated by a total national media blackout," said Bukit Nanas committee chairperson Low Fook San. The Kruger plant would be Malaysia's first official industrial waste disposal area. Japan ---> East Asia * The Japanese firm Takuma Co. Inc. announced in early 1993 that it plans to export incinerators to Korea [sic, North or South not specified] and Taiwan. Western Europe ---> Eastern Europe * In 1992, the Danish government offered to partially fund the export of a municipal waste incinerator from the Horsen community in Denmark to Vilnius, Lithuania. Lithuania rejected the scheme when authorities found that the incinerator did not meet Lithuanian environmental regulations. * EMC Service of Lyon, France announced in April 1993 that it will enter a joint venture with Budapest Chemical Works for the purpose of building an industrial waste incinerator in Hungary. Another French company, Sarp Industries, owns a significant share of Refuse Incinerator Kft, in Dorog, Hungary. * A Polish-Italian joint-venture between System Eko of Poland and Ercole Marelli Impianti Tecnologici (EMIT), Enichem and Tecnimont of Italy proposed construction of a municipal waste incinerator in Warsaw, Poland. Environmental activists in Warsaw stopped the incinerator proposal earlier this year, at least temporarily, arguing that the plan was illegal. EMIT is also attempting to develop incinerators in Russia. The chairman of one of EMIT's holding companies is in jail on corruption charges. (See related article below). Western Europe ---> Multiple Regions * A British patent firm named Alusit has shipped incinerators from the United States to Moscow and Taiwan, Lithuania and the West Indies. * In February this year, Chelmsford, U.K.-based shipping broker Ocean Express delivered an incinerator with a chimney and oil tank to the Turks Islands in the Caribbean. (Sources: Greenpeace; Port Import-Export Research Service data; Inter Press Service, March 16, 1992, June 18, 1993.) If you would like information about the dangers of waste incineration, read TTU 6.1, p. 29-30, and please contact your nearest Greenpeace office. These are some of the reports available from Greenpeace on the topic of waste incineration. Playing With Fire - A comprehensive report on hazardous waste incineration addrressing the theory and practice of incineration. Discusses the release of unburned wastes and metals, products of incomplete combustion (PICs), the hazards associated with ash residues and health and environmental impacts. Available from Greenpeace U.S., 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20009, USA. Warning: Incineration Can Seriously Harm Your Health! A report on the hazardous waste incineration crisis produced by Greenpeace International. Greenpeace International Chlorine Campaign, 16 North Boylan Avenue, Raleigh, NC, 27603, USA. Say No To The Toxic Oven - A background report on hazardous waste incineration produced by Greenpeace Australia. Greenpeace Australia, PO Box 800, Surry Hills, Sydney, NSW, 2010, AUSTRALIA. Toxic Waste Incineration on Land - No Thanks: 14 Arguments for Incineration and the Answers to Them. A report by Greenpeace Germany. Greenpeace Germany, Vorsetzen 53, D-2000, Hamburg, 11, GERMANY. Let the Earth Breathe... Stop Incineration! - A booklet produced by Greenpeace International. Greenpeace International, Keizersgracht 176, 1016 DW Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS. Eastern Europe Proposed Incinerator for Warsaw Put on Hold An Italian company's multimillion dollar plan to construct an energy generating incinerator in Warsaw, Poland has been halted temporarily due to public opposition. In March, environmentalists in Warsaw appealed a district council's decision which would have permitted the incinerator to be constructed. The environmentalists won on three counts: 1. The Warsaw District Council decided on the location of the incinerator before submitting an environmental impact assessment to the Warsaw Provincial Council. This is in contravention of the law on environmental protection. 2. The Warsaw District Council did not submit the proposal to the Warsaw Provincial Council for opinion. 3. The Head of the Warsaw District Council did not carry out a public consultation process, which is a legal requirement in cases where a proposed facility will have a major impact on the environment. Greenpeace Toxic Trade Expert Iza Kruszewska stated, "If this proposal goes forward, it will pave the way for many more waste incinerators in Poland." The Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign will continue to work with local environmentalists in Poland to prohibit the proliferation of such hazardous technologies in Eastern Europe. The Toxic Technology of Cyanide Heap Leaching By Jed Greer The following article is excerpted from an article which appeared in ***The Ecologist***, May/June 1993. Jed Greer conducts research on transnational corporations and the trade in toxic technologies for the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign. Since 1980, a gold rush has swept the globe. Encouraged by the precious metal's high, if fluctuating, price, this new gold rush involves the use of extremely hazardous compounds and technologies which are responsible for many environmental problems and threats to human health. Most notorious is the highly toxic mercury that impoverished small-scale miners employ in areas such as the Brazilian Amazon. Less well known is a corporate practice called cyanide heap leaching. Mining companies have developed this toxic technology most extensively in the United States, but are now beginning to export it to the less industrialized world. Cyanide Heap Leaching and Its Hazards Cyanide heap leaching is the open-air soaking of huge amounts of ore with cyanide solution. Crushed ore is placed on pads lined with clay or plastic. These heaps can stand from 10 to 200 feet high, span one to several hundred acres, and involve thousands to millions of tons of ore. Cyanide solution is applied to the ore, by pump or spray system, and percolates through the material, dissolving the gold and carrying it to collection ponds. After this liquid goes through a series of steps to remove the gold, the cyanide solution is reconstituted and used until the ore is completely leached. Depending on the ore, leaching takes between one week and three months.1 ***Diagram of heap leach process*** Mining companies find cyanide heap leaching attractive because it is an inexpensive technique which allows them to mine and process low-grade ore profitably. The greatest expansion of heap leach operations thus far has occurred in the US, particularly in the western states. Throughout the 1980s, the amount of gold produced in the US with heap leaching rose nearly twenty-fold, accounting for 6% of supply at the beginning of the decade and over one- third at the end.2 In 1980 there were perhaps two dozen heap leach facilities in the US; in 1991, there were 265, of which 151 were active.3 The enormous growth in US gold production in this period -- 31 metric tons in 1980, 295 mt in 1990 -- is largely attributable to cyanide heap leaching.4 This proliferation of heap leach operations is fraught with hazards. Cyanide is extremely poisonous and can be harmful or lethal to people, wildlife, and plants. Symptoms of acute poisoning in humans range from nausea, headaches, and dizziness to breathing difficulties, convulsions, and loss of consciousness. Very small doses of cyanide are fatal if ingested, inhaled, or absorbed.5 Cyanide contamination of the environment around heap leach sites is possible from leakage through liners which have been worn by the enormous weight and movement of ore, ripped by machinery, or which have been carelessly installed.6 Open pads and storage ponds can overflow and spill cyanide solution into the ecosystem. Heap leach facilities threaten the environment with additional toxic substances such as heavy metals which can be mobilized by crushing and leaching. Throughout the US, there have been numerous reports of overflow spills and leaks from either pond or heap pad liners. In Nevada, the state with the most heap leach sites, cyanide spills at mines happen on the average of one per week.7 Since 1982, according to the Technical Information Project in South Dakota, almost four dozen cyanide leaks or spills associated with mining companies have occurred in a single county of that state; in one incident, a company's supposedly state-of-the-art leach pad was leaking cyanide solution at a rate of up to some 5,000 gallons per day.8 For populations near heap leach facilities, contamination of water supplies is a potential danger. In 1989, 92,000 gallons of cyanide solution spilled from a leach unit in California and polluted a reservoir used for municipal, recreational, and agricultural purposes.9 In Montana, a leak from a cyanide solution pond tainted neighboring tapwater.10 Elsewhere in Montana, in the Little Rocky Mountains, cyanide from the state's largest gold mining operation is reportedly entering the aquifer of the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation, home to 5000 Gros Ventre and Assiniboin people. There is great anxiety about the company's plans to punch holes in the heap leach liner when mining ends to allow drainage for hundreds of millions of gallons of cyanide solution.11 Heap leach facilities are responsible for the death of great numbers of animals. In 1990, a cyanide leak in Colorado destroyed all aquatic life along 17 miles of one river.12 That same year, more than ten million gallons of cyanide solution spilled into a South Carolina river, killing up to 10,000 fish.13 In arid and semi-arid regions where gold mining often goes on, birds and mammals are drawn to cyanide solution ponds as a water source. The US Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that from 1986 to 1991, heap leach operations poisoned over 10,000 animals in Nevada alone. Waterfowl and shorebirds suffered the most casualties, but the ponds also killed songbirds as well as small and large mammals.14 Cyanide Heap Leaching and Toxic Trade Cyanide heap leaching is a perilous enterprise and can be potentially disastrous. It is disturbing, therefore, to learn that mining companies in the North are considering or are already building heap leach operations in Latin America. As of late 1992, Pinson Mining Company was developing cyanide heap leaching at the Bellavista gold mine in Costa Rica. In Chile, Amax Gold Inc. is building a cyanide heap leach operation at the Guuanaco gold mine, and Placer Dome Inc. is considering cyanide heap leaching at the La Coipa gold mine. In addition, Battle Mountain Gold Company already has a heap leach operation at Chile's San Cristobal gold mine. An industry representative acknowledged that the status of Chilean regulation for heap leaching is far inferior to that of US regulatory efforts (see below).15 More recently, an individual in Canada responsible for financing a disastrous cyanide heap leach operation in Colorado, the Summitville gold mine, is now promoting a new project called Venezuelan Goldfields. According to this financier, the Venezuelan government is seeking large foreign investors because of the environmental problems associated with small-scale miners' use of mercury.16 The Venezuelan government would do well to examine the experience at the Summitville mine. Operated by Galactic Resources, the heap leach pad at the mine began leaking in 1986. Nine separate spills totalling 85,000 gallons were recorded in 1987 alone and in 1992 the US Environmental Protection Agency found that 3,000 gallons of contaminated solution were being discharged every minute from six different leaks. The resulting pollution has destroyed fish stocks in one river and farmers have reported serious damage to agricultural land irrigated by tainted water. Cleanup costs are estimated to be at least US$60 million. Unable to pay these costs, Galactic Resources has filed for bankruptcy.17 Problems with Regulating Cyanide Heap Leaching Philip M. Hocker of the Washington, DC-based Mineral Policy Center writes: "We are spraying tens of thousands of tons of one of the most acute poisons known to man across the landscape. There will be more deaths if this program is not strictly controlled and the dead will not all be birds and animals."18 In the US, however, the dangers of cyanide heap leaching have defied controls and may indeed be uncontrollable. The federal policy for cyanide heap leach management lacks adequate enforcement mechanisms and inspection personnel.19 The only state that has a specific regulatory program for heap leaching is Oregon and as yet it has no heap leaches. Reports in California, Utah, and Montana indicate that there are continual environmental violations at heap leaching sites, but the states' regulators are unable to enforce compliance with the law. Although fences and covers can help prevent birds and animals from coming into contact with leach pads and cyanide solution storage ponds, there are no federal regulations requiring operators to obstruct wildlife access and only Nevada has enforceable requirements to keep wildlife away from heap leach operations.20 In Conclusion The track record of heap leaching in the United States should serve as a warning to countries in the South being targeted by Northern promoters of this practice. Like the use of mercury, the toxic technology of heap leaching exacts a terrible ecological price from the environment. Producers and consumers of gold should ask themselves whether the allure of the world's most coveted mineral justifies deliberate endangerment of human health and indiscriminate harm to the environment. Notes 1. For descriptions of cyanide heap leaching see: Bruce Most, "Gold Rush," in Popular Mechanics, March 1988; George Laycock, "Going for the Gold," in Audubon, July 1989; and Kenneth Cole and Ann Kirkpatrick, "Cyanide Heap Leaching in California," in Geology California, September 1983. Also National Wildlife Federation (NWF), Poisoned Profits: Cyanide Heap Leach Mining and Its Impacts on the Environment, prepared by David Albersworth et al, Washington, DC, 1992. p. 1. 2. NWF, p. 1; Most, p. 64; and Laycock, p. 77. 3. NWF, p. 1 and Appendix A. 4. Steenkamp,T.I., "Gold: A Watershed Year?", in "Annual Survey and Outlook," Engineering and Mining Journal, April 1992, p. 52. 5. For the toxicity and hazards of cyanide see: Cole and Kirkpatrick, p. 191; US Department of the Interior, Environmental Handbook for Cyanide Leaching Projects,(no date), pp. 24-2; and Toxicological Profile for Cyanide, prepared by Syracuse Research Corporation for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), December 1989. 6. Laycock, p. 77, and Philip Hocker, "Cyanide Spring," in Clementine, Autumn 1989, p. 10. Clementine is a publication of the Mineral Policy Center, Washington, DC. 7. Bob Fulkerson, "Cyanide Spills Common in Nevada Mining," in Citizen Alert, Summer 1990. See also Hocker for general information on heap leach spills and leaks. 8. Technical Information Project, "Tips," vol. 6, nos. 6 and 7, 8 November 1991. 9. NWF, p. 8. 10. Laycock, pp. 77-78. 11. Greg Bechle, "Mountains of Cyanide," in The Progressive, September 1990, p. 14. 12. NWF, p. 8. 13. John Young, "Mining the Earth," Worldwatch Paper 109, July 1992, p. 24. 14. NWF, p. 10. 15. From conversations of author with company representatives. The information about Chilean regulation comes from personal communication of author with a representative of one of these companies. 16. David Baines, "Promoter's history includes role in environmental disaster," in Vancouver Sun, 23 April 1993. 17. Ibid. 18. Hocker, p. 11. 19. For this and other information on cyanide heap leach regulations in the US see NWF, pp. 14-15. 20. Ibid and personal communication of author with NWF. Saving the Earth through Contractual Clauses By Paul Pivcevic A new report by the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign presents ideas that could have far-reaching implications for how countries seeking foreign investment can protect their environments. According to CIEL's David Hunter, "Foreign investment does not naturally flow to protect the environment. It is up to governments to place restraints and controls on environmentally damaging activities." The report examines cases of environmentally disastrous investments in Poland and suggests as a remedy that model environmental protection clauses be included in contracts that governments make with foreign investors. "These clauses apply particularly to privatization sales where government is one of the negotiators," explained Mr. Hunter. "As such they are relevant to any country privatizing its industries, from Poland and the Czech and Slovak Republics to the former Soviet Union, Argentina, Mexico and ultimately of course, China." The goal of CIEL's proposed clauses is to promote clean investment. They provide for environmental audits. They stipulate that information about a joint venture should be made available to local people for comment before it is agreed, and for a member of the community to be appointed to the company's board. And, for the first time, investors will be asked to conduct a so- called clean production audit on their business. They will be required to reveal the nature of all wastes their business produces and commit to a timetable for elimination of all wastes which are hazardous. Investors would also agree to discuss any clean production methods which might imply operational changes in their activities. Western companies, particularly those based in the US, are accustomed to dealing with environmental matters in contractual clauses. Indeed the wording of some of CIEL's clauses are identical to those already written into many contracts in the US. However, western investors will likely oppose the clean production audit because most of them still consider pollution to be a necessary byproduct of their industrial practices. But the single most unpalatable provision for western business, says Mr. Hunter, will be the issue of public participation. "These clauses are very progressive because they challenge the very notion of what a corporation means. We hope they will provide for more public service and more public accountability. If they are applied, developing countries could in theory expect more openness and democracy than we currently have in the West." The Case of Asea Brown Boveri in Poland The environmental clauses drawn up by CIEL have been incorporated into a Greenpeace report called "Open Borders - Broken Promises." The report looks in particular at the environmental record of the Swiss-Swedish engineering multinational Asea Brown Boveri ABB, Poland's largest foreign employer. "The contractual provisions that CIEL has drawn up we hope will prevent in future the kind of environmental damage we have already seen in Poland, including the damage done by ABB," said Iza Kruszewska, toxic trade campaigner for Greenpeace International. In 1991, residents discovered an illegal landfill in the village of Prochnik that the nearby ABB plant had leased in order to dispose of molding sands ABB uses in the manufacture of steam turbines. The joint venture with former state-owned engineering enterprise Zamech, ABB Zamech, produces 30,000 tons per year of spent molding sands as waste. When this waste was sampled, the sands were found to contain carcinogens like phthalates, but also dangerously high concentrations of the heavy metals manganese and chromium. Experts from the local environmental inspectorate found the waste was contaminating groundwater with carcinogenic phenols. Over the following 14 months, ABB was fined around $200,000 US. Although environmental damage had already occurred, payment was deferred by the local government on acceptance of a rehabilitation plan, together with an ABB proposal to build a waste sand recycling plant. ABB has since eliminated phenols from its waste sands. "This situation would never have arisen in Sweden, one of ABB's home bases," said Ms. Kruszewska. "The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency guidelines for foundries state that waste sand that may contain phenols should not be left in areas which are protected water sources, or other places which might be polluted." Beyond Guiding Principles "Open Borders - Broken Promises" illustrates sustainable alternatives to international business initiatives launched recently by industrialized countries. One such initiative is the so-called 'Responsible Care Program' endorsed by large chemical transnational corporations. Another is the Business Council for Sustainable Development which was launched at the Earth Summit last year by billionaire businessman Stephan Schmidheiny. "So many transnationals are going for guiding principles to protect the environment which are not legally binding," said Kruszewska. "But the victims of environmental damage can expect scant compensation from broken guiding principles. That's why it is essential to have legal measures." Greenwash Award Beginning with this issue, the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign will honor various transnational corporations with quarterly Greenwash Awards. We will give the award to the company publishing the most absurd, misleading or misguided environmental advertisement of the previous three months. If you wish to nominate a company for a Greenwash Award, please send a copy of the relevant advertisement to Greenpeace Greenwash Awards, Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, 462 Broadway, 6th Floor, New York, NY, 10013, USA. Anyone who sends in a nomination will receive, in return, a complementary copy of The Greenpeace Book of Greenwash, a 1992 report exposing the reality hidden under the green image being created by transnational corporations. The first Greenwash Award goes to Imperial Chemical Industries PLC (ICI), for its full page advertisement "Paraquat and Nature Working in Perfect Harmony." The ad ran in the Malaysian newspaper, ***The Star***, on April 21, 1993, as well as other Malaysian newspapers throughout the month of April. ICI chairman Sir Denys Henderson will receive a bag of organically-grown tea in recognition of this ad. ***Ad*** This ad was chosen for its extremely bad taste in linking nature with paraquat, a deadly synthetic chemical. We were struck by the ad's purely defensive tone. Nowhere in the ad does ICI explain who should use the product for what reasons. Rather, ICI transparently responds to educational programs about the dangers of paraquat. Paraquat is an acutely toxic herbicide banned, severely restricted, or unregistered in ten countries. The Pesticide Action Network labels paraquat one of the "Dirty Dozen" pesticides which have caused many deaths in agricultural workers as well as widespread environmental destruction. This ad violates the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Code of Conduct on the Distribution and Use of Pesticides by making claims to safety referring to the "harmless" nature of paraquat. The FAO Pesticide Code states that industry should ensure that claims to safety, including statements such as "harmless" are not made (Article 11.1.8). Examining the ad carefully, we find several misleading claims. #1. "Because of paraquat's adsorption to minerals and clay particles in soil, it is deactivated rapidly and cannot be released to contaminate ground water and waterways." Paraquat, which binds tightly to soil particles, tends to degrade minimally and to stay in soil, but it is not necessarily "deactivated." Because adsorption onto material such as clay helps protect paraquat from breakdown, it increases the herbicide's environmental persistence and accumulation. Water movement or precipitation can mobilize particles with paraquat, which can be ingested, inhaled, or contacted directly. #2: Paraquat is not harmful to our wildlife. Researchers in the US and Europe have found paraquat to be hazardous and even lethal to many aquatic life forms including algae and frog tadpoles. A 1979 report to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) showed that exposure to paraquat reduces the survival rate of yearling salmons and a study cited by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1984 indicated that the herbicide increases the mortality rate of exposed trout. Research in the US in 1981 and 1985 demonstrated that paraquat harms species of wildlife including honeybees, mites, deer mice, and hares, while the 1984 WHO report indicated the same for some domestic farm animals. Paraquat has been shown to cause increased mortality and reduced growth rates in nestlings of the American kestrel. A number of US and European studies show that paraquat is also extremely toxic to bird embryos when applied topically to eggs of chicken, mallards, and Japanese quail. #3: "Paraquat DOES NOT destroy the root system....[but instead] contributes to increased organic matter which improves soil tilth and fertility." Research in 1981 showed that paraquat had a negative impact on nitrogen fixing soil rhizhobial species associated with alfalfa. In 1984, an Indian researcher observed a powerful mutagenicity effect of paraquat on nitrogen fixing blue-green algae found in rice paddies. Both studies raise serious concerns about the impact of paraquat on nitrogen fertility management from non- chemical sources in a number of agricultural cropping systems. NOTE: ICI/Zeneca is the world's biggest producer of paraquat, which it markets in over 130 nations. ICI/Zeneca is currently planning a new paraquat plant in England. At the request of local consumers groups, this advertisement is reportedly under investigation by the Malaysian Pesticides Board. Resources on Toxic Trade Canada's Toxic Trade - This Greenpeace fact sheet explains the problems of waste imports into and exports from Canada. It describes how industries in the U.S. and Canada take advantage of relative weaknesses in each others waste disposal laws. The fact sheets are available in English and French from Greenpeace Canada, 2444, Notre Dame Ouest, Montreal, Quebec, H3J 1N5, CANADA. Chlorine Fact Sheets - The Greenpeace International Chlorine Campaign has produced a series of 10 fact sheets covering many chlorine related environmental issues including general chlorine; PVC; water treatment; chlorine and incineration; ecosystems and human health; pesticides; household and workshop products; ozone; bans, phaseouts and alternatives; and pulp and paper. A full set of chlorine fact sheets is available from Greenpeace International Chlorine Campaign, 16 North Boylan Avenue, Raleigh, NC 27603, USA. The cost is $10.00. Cracking the Codex: An Analysis of Who Sets World Food Standards -This report was produced by the UK National Food Alliance on the United Nations (UN) Codex Alimentarius Commission. It analyzes the interests determining the Codex Standards. The Codex Alimentarius Commission is the UN body that sets standards for pesticide residues in food. Under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) the Codex will have far reaching influence over the way nations establish food and agriculture standards. This report shows that the views of corporations and industry associations are well represented on the Codex while citizens and public interest groups have been virtually excluded from the process. It also reveals that national delegates from the North heavily outnumber those from the South. Available from The National Food Alliance, 5-11 Worship Street, London, EC2A 2BH, UK. The cost is 7.5 pounds sterling. Handel in Gevaarlijk Afval - Het Gif van de Beschaving (The Trade in Hazardous Waste - The Poison of Civilization) - This Greenpeace fact sheet explains what hazardous waste is, how profits are made from the trade in these wastes, why the Third World is a target, and what the only solution is for this world wide problem. Copies are available in Dutch from Greenpeace Netherlands, Keizersgracht 174, 1016 DW Amsterdam, THE NETHERLANDS. If the Answer is Incineration, Someone asked the Wrong Question. By Ellen and Paul Connett. This report discusses the advantages and disadvantages of municipal solid waste incineration, the history of trash incineration in the U.S. and Europe, the use of health risk assessment to placate the public's fears about incinerator emissions, and alternatives and avoiding the trap of "integrated waste management." The book is available for US$7.00 from Work on Waste, 82 Judson, Canton, NY, 13617, USA. Incineration Compared to Energy and Waste Management Alternatives: A Full Environmental Cost Analysis. By Christopher Neurath. This report makes quantitative estimates of the overall environmental costs of: incineration, composting, recycling, waste reduction, energy production and energy conservation. The report is available for US$7.00 from Work on Waste, 82 Judson, Canton, NY, 13617, USA. NAFTA Undermines Natural Resource Conservation - Greenpeace released this report which documents the consequences the North American Free Trade Agreement will have on natural resource conservation in Canada, the US and Mexico. The report is critical of the Clinton Administration for refusing to discuss NAFTA's impacts upon forests, farmland, fisheries and energy resources. The report is available from Greenpeace, 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20009, USA. Greenpeace also has a four page fact sheet entitled NAFTA: Trading Away Tomorrow, which is available from the same office. The Need for a New Approach to Locust Control - Greenpeace International prepared this report for the FAO International Workshop on Research and Planning for Desert Locust Control held in Morocco, May 24 - 28, 1993. The report provides an overview of environmental problems relating to pesticides, quantifies the gravity of the locust plague, evaluates emergency responses to the plague, discusses the economics of the locust control program, and suggests alternative methods of locust control. Copies are available in English only from Greenpeace International Annex, Temple House, 25/26 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 2LU. The Pesticide Hazard: A Global Health and Environmental Audit - Barbara Dinham of the UK Pesticides Trust compiled this analysis of the international pesticide trade using material collected by NGOs in 15 countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The book provides an account of the international Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure and identifies the limitations of this scheme to protect human health and the environment from the hazards of pesticides. Copies are available from The Pesticides Trust, 23 Beehive Place, London, SW9 7QR, U.K. The cost is 13.95 UK pounds sterling including postage and packing (or 10 pounds to NGOs). The Proposed Likiep RRS: Resource Recovery or Toxic Dumping? - This six page fact sheet describes Consolidated Environmental Inc.'s plan to build and operate a pyrolytic resource recovery system on Likiep Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The fact sheet discusses the dangers of waste disposal through pyrolysis. Copies are available from the Greenpeace Pacific Campaign, 139 Townsend Street, San Francisco, CA, 94107-1922, USA. Open Borders, Broken Promises. Privatization and Foreign Investment: Protecting the Environment through Contractual Clauses - This Greenpeace report shows how Poland can avoid a future of economic exploitation and further environmental decay as it seeks international capital with which to rebuild its industry and its economy. Greenpeace examines the background, commercial outlook and impact on the environment of one major foreign investor in Poland, the Swiss-Swedish transnational corporation Asea Brown Boveri. Finally, the report suggests a way to safeguard the Polish environment through contracts governing privatization sales and other investments that the Polish government makes with foreign corporations, until Poland adopts legislation controlling activities of foreign investors. Copies are available in English and Polish from the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, Greenpeace UK, Canonbury Villas, London, N1 2PN, UK. Plastic Waste to Indonesia: The Invasion of the Little Green Dots -Greenpeace documents 16 waste export schemes to Indonesia, all of which are sham recycling schemes. Copies are available in English and German from the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, Greenpeace Germany, Vorsetzen 53, 2000 Hamburg 11, Germany. Recycling Versus Incineration: An Energy Conservation Analysis. By Jeffrey Morris and Diana Canzoneri of Sound Resource Management Group (SMRG) Inc. The paper demonstrates that Energy- From-Waste (EFW) facilities are not an efficient source of electrical power, using Ontario, Canada as a test site. The authors write, "More energy can be conserved by recycling than can be generated by incinerating the various materials which make up Ontario's solid waste. On average, we estimate that recycling saves three to five times as much energy as is produced by incinerating municiapal solid waste." The report is available for US$35.00 from SRMG, 5025 California Ave, SW Seattle, WA 98136, USA. Waste Trade Free Zone Community Action Kit - This Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign resource is a new campaigning tool for people trying to ban the international trade in wastes. The kit is a compilation of written material from the Greenpeace Waste Trade Project and several other non-Greenpeace documents. It is designed for students, grassroots activists, community groups, church groups, and other interested parties who want their town officials to stop the export of wastes from their communities. Although the main focus of the kit is the export of wastes, the techniques, tools and skills described can be used to campaign on any issue, from getting a road repaired to opposing the military budget. The kit is designed for activism in the US, but could be used for activists in other countries. There are valuable tips on how to lobby public officials, organize demonstrations, talk to the media and more. It is available for US$3.00 from the Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20009, USA. Videos PVC: The Hidden Costs - This Greenpeace video identifies the human health and environmental problems associated with the use of PVC in buildings. The footage mainly consists of interviews with architects explaining why they have sought alternatives to PVC in construction of buildings. Available from either Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign, 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009, USA, or Greenpeace Communications, 5 Baker's Row, London, EC1R 3DB, U.K. The cost is US$10.00. Notable Quotation A member of the German Environment Ministry recently told a group of German Diplomats in training, "When you talk to responsible persons in your host countries and they ask you for advice, tell them to enact a ban on waste imports as we can see no possibility here to get an export ban. This government must serve the interests of the German economy... When there are import bans, it's much easier for us."