TL: DEADLY BUSINESS: WASTE TRADE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SO: Greenpeace Mediterranean Campaign (GP) DT: not dated Keywords: greenpeace reports mediterranean hazardous waste trade disposal toxics gp europe africa / On 1987 in the tiny delta port of Koko, Nigeria, a deal was struck between Italian and Nigerian businessmen to transport and dump almost 4,000 tons of Italian toxic wastes on Nigerian territory. The discovery of the leaking, dangerously stacked barrels many months later, led to an international furor. To date, the incident has resulted in the seizing of an Italian frighter, the reacalling of the Nigerian ambassador from Italy, the jailing of 54 persons by Nigerian authorities, the institution of the death penalty in Nigeria for waste traders, and the banning of exports to developing countries by Italy. Today, the legacy of this business deal persists, as the dangerous and costly process of cleaning the dump continues and the Italian government seeks alternatives for the returned waste. The Koko scandal took place at almost the same time as another infamous voyage -that of the dump ship, the Khian Seawhich departed the US city Philadelphia, in August 1986 loaded with 14,000 tons of incinerator ash. For 27 subsequent months, this dump ship plied the waters of five continents, including the Mediterranean Sea before finally moving on to dump its toxic cargo some somewhere in the Indian Ocean. The simultaneous occurrence of these two incidents sent shock waves around the world. Public outrage over the matter of the dumping of toxic wastes from the heavily industrialised Northern countries on the less-industrialised Southern nations of the world, has forced politicians to face the grave moral, political and environmental implications of this deplorable trade. Not surprisingly, the Mediterranean region with its numerous ports and its location in a sea-trade crossroads of North and South, and East and West geo-political regions, lies at the center of the international trade in hazardous wastes. Scope of the Problem The Koko and Khian Sea scandals of 1988 were not isolated incidents. Greenpeace research has revealed that these scandals were just dramatic case studies in a proliferating global business. Greenpeace has publicised more than 1000 different proposals to export and dump more than 163 million tonnes of waste since 1986. And of that total, over 5.2 million tonnes of wastes actually been exported from the rich nations of Western Europe and North America to the poorer Eastern European or developing countries. Resisting the Toxic Flood Toxic waste follows the path of least resistance; that is, this deadly material will inevitably move toward those areas of least political and economic power to refuse it. In industrialised countries, poorer neighbourhoods or rural areas have most often been chosen as sites for proposed toxic waste landfills or incinerators. Residents have been lured into accepting the waste with the promise of revenue, jobs or electricity. Today we have the same situation repeating itself, but on a much more frightening, global scale. Over 77 less industrialised nations have been asked to accept massive quantities of industrial waste. In a hopeless choice between short term economic gain and the long-term health of generations of their people. The government of Guinea-Bissau, one of Africa's poorest nations, briefly agreed to receive over 15,000,000 tons of toxic waste in exchange for $600 million dollars -four times its Gross National Product. The seductive international waste trade has already claimed victims throughout the world. Nigerian health officials have noted a high miscarriage rate among women living near the Koko dumpsite. Some in Turkey and Lebanon have fallen ill after they unknowingly opened barrels of imported waste. Italian shipworkers have been overcome and hospitalised by toxic fumes in the holds of waste transport ships. Environmentally Safe Disposal: The Myth Those living near dumpsites have shouldered an enormous burden for the world's waste producing industries. There is no disposal method yet invented that will prevent the release of poisons into our most precious resources, the air, water and earth. No landfill or incinerator is safe - despite the reliance on these technologies by industrialised countries. Past disposal practices have left a legacy of contaminated groundwater from landfills and dioxin fallout and toxic ash from incinerators. In West Germany, according to the Ministry of Environment, Nature Protection and Nuclear Safety, the national map is already dotted with 48,377 contaminated dumpsites. Protests in Europe against the siting of proposed incinerators and landfills are commonplace. The public in industrialised nations have demanded ever more strict legislation which has driven the costs of disposal and liability at existing facilities, higher and higher. The recent banning of ocean incineration in the North Sea, has already begun to increase the pressure to find other cheap methods of disposal. Instead of taking responsibility for their own wastes, instead of instituting clean, waste prevention technologies, the industrial nations of the world have sought to export their problem to the less industrialised regions of the world. Waste Prevention: The Solution Greenpeace is opposed to all transboundary movement of hazardous wastes. We oppose the export of hazardous wastes not only for moral reasons, but because such export prevents nations from facing the responsibility to minimise their own waste production - the only sure way to end the crisis of environmental damage and human suffering caused by hazardous wastes. To date, governments and industry have been following a policy of searching for a waste cure. Waste prevention is recognised by technical experts throughout the world as viable and feasible within a few years. The US government Office of Technology Assesment has estimated that if efforts were begun today, industry could reduce its waste by half in five years. Instead of looking for new places to "hide" wastes, we must begin to find ways to ensure that they never get produced. As a first priority within the Waste Trade Campaign, Greenpeace concentrates its efforts on banning exports from heavily industrialised countries to less industrialised countries. It is these countries that are most vulnerable to the insidious choice between poison or poverty. Within Europe, Greenpeace also opposes waste exports to nations such as those in the eastern Europe, as well as the United Kingdom, Spain and France. These nations either by choice or circumstance, are being used as "dustbins" by their neighbours, accepting huge amounts of hazardous waste imports from other heavily industrialised coutries such as Switzerland, West Germany and Italy. Waste Traders of the Mediterranean: Case Studies Italy's Fleet of Toxic Waste Ships Most of the waste trade scaldals of recent years involved shipments sailing on the Mediterranean Sea. At least 10000 ships departed Italian harbours betweek 1987 and 1988 bound for Lebanon, Rumania, Nigeria, Djibouti, Syria, Turkey, and Venezuela. The Italian Ministry for Environment has declared that it is currently only able to manage 10% of its industrial waste. Thus the remainder is exported or illegally dumped. According to the Italian Ministry for the Environment, nearly 300,000 tons of waste were exported during 1988, 20% by ship. But due to lax or unenforceable waste trade legislation, many other shipments go unreported by the government, making such figures unrealistically low. Many of these shipments left Italy quietly, without publicity or exposure. But a few, as in the case of the Koko scandal, were forced to return the wastes to Italy from Nigeria, Venezuela and Lebanon. To date four ships, the Zanoobia, Karin B, Deepsea Carrier, and Jolly Rosso have returned to Italian territory. Much of the waste from these ships is now very quietly being exported to France and the UK. Barrels Wash Ashore in the Black Sea As difficult as it is to monitor the transboundary movement and land disposal of hazardous waste, the practice of illegal sea dumping of wastes is even more clandestine. In the months between August and December 1988, 400 barrels full of various toxic substances washed ashore on thee Turkish Black Sea coast. When the barrels first washed ahore, many were emptied by local people and used to store rainwater or food. Some suffered nausea and skin rashes. A cow died the same day it licked the contents of one barrel. One of the barrels exploded. Beaches had to be closed as authorities began to collect them systematically. Documents found inside certain barrels revealed an Italian origin. A subsequent investigation revealed that the wastes departed Italy for Rumania a year earlier. It is unkwown how the wastes ended up in the Black Sea but the dumping was clearly intentional as holes had been punched in the barrels in an attempt to make them sink. So far, there has been no effort to have the wastes returned to Italy. Dumping in Lebanon: Misery Added to Misery In the last three years, 16,000 barrels and 20 containers of toxic waste are known to have been dumped on war-torn Lebanon. European wastes have been discovered in and around Beirut. When attempts were made to sell the poisons as raw materials for various commercial uses, the scandal of the dumping was revealed. Many innocent victims were injured, prompting analysis of the various substances. According to Lebanese ecologist Pierre Malychef, among the barrels were found such extremely dangerous compounds as methyl isocyanate (the chemical released in the Bhopal disaster), herbicides with high levels of dioxin, carcinogenic solvents, and PCB's. A small percentage of this waste was returned to Italy onboard the Jolly Rosso in 1988, but the rest remains in leaking barrels and containers in Lebanon. Political Initiatives to Halt the Waste Trade In response to the recent explosion of international waste trade schemes, at least 45 countries have banned the import of foreign wastes. In addition, major intergovernmental organisations, like the Organisation of African Unity and the ACP countries (69 former European colonies in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific) have called for a ban on exports of waste from industrialised to developing countries. The Basel Convention The only global attempt to deal with the problem however, failed to achieve a ban of this pernicious trade. Two years of United Nations Environmental Programm (UNEP) negotiations led to the signing of a global waste trade pact in Basel, Switzerland. Despite the clear desire of a majority of nations of the world for a complete ban, The Basel Convention was dominated by a certain heavily industrialised nations which insisted on their option to maintain waste export as a legitimate waste disposal option. Instead of enacting provisions that would prevent or eliminate waste trade, what evolved was a convention that merely consisted of a set of definitions and a waste shipment notification procedure. Sush a system serves to legitimate what heretofore had been considered by many to be a criminal activity. Industrialised nations had the power to stop waste exports to the less- industrialised nations; instead they opted to legalise them. Regional Bans Although the Basel Convention fell far short of what is necessary to combat waste trade, there are numerous encouraging and exciting initiatives in regional fora that will greatly impact the Mediterranean region. Not only are these efforts powerful in their own right, but may also provide the impetus to push the Basel Convention into coming to terms with the realities of this environmental crisis. The Bamako Convention Following the failure of the Basel Convention to ban waste trade to developing countries, African states refused to sign the Convention pending a joint decision on the issue. A series of Organisation of African Unity (OAU) resolutions had already condemned waste trade and subsequently new resolutions called upon the OAU secretariat to draft a convention that would ban waste dumping in Africa. The OAU currently includes all African states on the Mediterranean coast except Morocco. On January 29, 1991 African environmental ministers meeting in Bamako, Mali, adopted and signed the "Bamako Convention on the Ban of the Import into Africa of Hazardous Wastes" (Bamako Convention). The African treaty was convened and negotiated over the course of 18 months, and probably represents the most progressive hazardous waste legislation in the world. Besides banning the import of hazardous including nuclear wastes, the Bamako Convention also bans the import of hazardous products which have been prohibited in the manufacturing country, all forms of ocean dumping of wastes, and sets guidelines for reducing, managing and transporting hazardous wastes produced in Africa. The Bamako Convention will enter into force after the necessary 10 African countries ratify if. This is expected to happen before the end of 1991. All African countries with the exception of South Africa are currently elegible to sign and ratify the convention. EEC/ACP Lome IV Convention Perhaps the most significant global development in the effort to end the trade in wastes was the signing of the Lome IV Convention on 15 December 1989. This Convention, a trade and aid agreement between the sixty-nine African, Caribbean and Pacific countries (ACP) and the 12 EC states, includes a comprehensive hazardous waste trade ban. Once this 10 year pact enters into force, the EC will be prohibited from allowing any shipments of hazardous, including nuclear, waste to the 69 ACP countries. Also, under this agreement, the ACP group agreed to prohibit hazardous, including radioactive waste imports from any country. Although there are no ACP countries within the Mediterranean region, Lome IV provides an excellent precedent and motivation for the EEC Commission to simplify matters and ban all hazardous waste exports from the Community. European Community The European Commission has proposed a new regulation on the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes. Greenpeace has denounced this draft regulation as doing nothing more than institutionalising the Basel Convention and for failing to prohibit all waste exports leaving the European Community. Even worse, the draft regulation would establish weaker provisions for wastes bound for recycling, allowing loopholes for anybody claiming that their wastes would be reused. However better news could be imminent. Previously, on 25 May 1989, the European Parliament voted in favour of a complete waste export ban to developing countries. In an Environment Council meeting on March 18, 1991, the countries of Germany, Italy and Greece have stated officially that they accept this as well. On June 1990, all Environmental Ministers agreed on language stating that the EC must become "self-sufficient" in waste disposal and encouraged member states to do the same. Barcelona Convention Notwithstanding the efforts of the OAU, EEC/ACP, the Basel Convention and certain national legislation, the threat posed by the international trade in hazardous, including nuclear, waste in the Mediterranean region is very real. Less-industrialized (non- OECD) Mediterranean countries still remain highly vulnerable to foreign waste traders. A strong, region-wide legal instrument is thus necessary to protect the Mediterranean area from the deadly business of waste trade and the threat of pirate ocean dumping. The Barcelona Convention, as the main convention dealing with the issue of pollution problems affecting the Mediterranean region, is better positioned than any other international convention to protect the bordering countries from becoming victim to waste importation and dumping. Currently there are no specific provisions banning waste trade, but the Sixth Meeting of the Contracting Parties (October 1989), adopted a recommendation calling on the Secretariat to assess within six months the nature of hazardous waste movements in the Mediterranean region and, "in the light of the assessment, proceed with the preparation of a draft legal instrument or a protocol on the subject applicable to the Mediterranean region. So far, to Greenpeace's knowledge, there has been little progress in the implementation of this recommendation. However the Mediterranean countries and the EC must recognize the urgency of the problem and act accordingly within the Barcelona Convention. Already, African nations and Italy have already moved to curb waste trade by enacting export or import bans. However many nations in the region and the Mediterranean Sea itself, remain threatened. It is time for the Contracting Parties of the Barcelona Convention to draft, sign and ratify a legal instrument to prohibit and phase-out waste trade within this critical region of the world. --------------------------- Ends. PHOTOS AND CHARTS ----------------------------------------------------------------- (Deadly Business: Waste Trade in the Mediterranean) (foto 1) Italian wastes dumped in Koko, Nigeria c) Amicci della Terra (Italia). (foto 2) Greenpeace Mediterranean campaign ship MV Sirius confronts Deepsea Carrier carrying wastes that were dumped in Koko, Nigeria. (cuadro 1) ----------------------------------------------------------------- MEDITERRANEAN COUNTRIES INVOLVED IN ACTUAL OR PLANNED WASTE TRADE France Import Actual/Ongoing 1,300,000 tonnes/yr. Italy Export Actual/Ongoing 300,000 tonnes/yr. Lebanon Dumped on Actual, 1987-88 thousands of tonnes Morocco Import Uncertain, plan hundreds of thousands of tonnes/yr. Rumania Dumped on Actual, 1988 thousands of tonnes Spain Import Actual/Ongoing hundreds of thousands of tonnes/yr. Syria Dumped on Actual, 1987 thousands of tonnes Tunisia Import Rejected, 1987 hundreds of thousands of tonnes/yr. Greece Import Planned Many thousands of tonnes/yr. Turkey Dumped on Actual, 1987-88 hundreds of thousands of tonnes ----------------------------------------------------------------- (foto 3) Barrels of European wastes that washed ashore in Turkey c) Greenpeace (cuadro 2) ----------------------------------------------------------------- CURRENT WASTE TRADE BANS AMONG MEDITERRANEAN STATES, AUGUST 1990 Country Imports Exports Explanation ---------------------------------------------------------------- Albania -- -- Algeria Ban -- OAU Resolution Cyprus -- -- Egypt Ban -- OAU Resolution France -- Ban/ACP Lom‚ IV Greece -- Ban/ACP Lom‚ IV Israel -- -- Italy -- Ban/non-OECD National Legislation Lebanon Ban -- National Legislation Libya Ban -- OAU Resolution Malta -- -- Monaco -- -- Morocco -- -- Spain -- Ban/ACP Lom‚ IV Syria -- -- Tunisia Ban -- OAU Resolution Turkey Ban -- National Legislation Yugoslavia Ban (partial) National Legislation ------------------------------------------------------------- ENDS