[] TL: GREENPEACE WASTE TRADE UPDATE VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 (GP) SO: Greenpeace International DT: MARCH 22, 1991 Keywords: toxics hazardous waste trade greenpeace digests gp greenpeace / [part 1 of 7] Waste Trade Publications Coordinator: Heather Spalding - USA Waste Trade Campaigners: Herbert Schaupp - Austria Yves Corriveau - Canada Anita Fokkema - EC Matthias Voigt - Germany Andreas Bernstorff - Germany Paola Biocca - Italy Fabienne Chefsailles, Katia Kanas - France Jim Puckett - The (European Coordinator) Marcie Mersky - Guatemala John Arends - The Netherlands Stefan Weber - Switzerland Madeleine Cobbing - U.K. Kenny Bruno, Ron Robinson Greenpeace U.S.A. - Boston Ann Leonard, Connie Murtagh Kim Roos, Jim Vallette Greenpeace U.S.A. - Washington Circulation: 5,000 (est.) Annual Subscription: US$10.00. Please make checks payable to "Greenpeace Waste Trade Project." Please see order form on last page. [Greenbase Inventory October 27, 1991 ] =========##========= [] TL: GREENPEACE WASTE TRADE UPDATE VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 (GP) SO: Greenpeace International DT: MARCH 22, 1991 Keywords: toxics hazardous waste trade greenpeace digests gp greenpeace / [part 2 of 7] AFRICA ADOPTS SWEEPING MEASURES TO PROTECT CONTINENT FROM TOXIC TERRORISM On January 29, African nations adopted a treaty which will close the continent to all forms of hazardous waste trade. The treaty was convened under the auspices of the Organizations of African Unity (OAU) -- an intergovernmental political organization of African countries except South Africa and Morocco. Ministers from the OAU met in Bamako. Mali and adopted the "Bamako Convention on the Ban of the Import into Africa and the Control of Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Wastes within Africa" which: *bans the import of hazardous waste including radioactive waste; *bans the import of hazardous substances which have been banned, canceled or refused registration, or voluntarily withdrawn in the country of manufacture for human health or environmental reasons; *bans the dumping and ocean incineration of waste; *requires hazardous waste generation audits; *imposes strict, unlimited, joint and several liability on hazardous waste generators; *calls for the issue of the transfer to Africa of polluting technologies to be under systematic review; *and commits African states to "strive to adopt and implement the preventative, precautionary approach to pollution problems which entails...preventing the release of substances which may cause harm to humans or the environment without waiting for scientific proof regarding such harm." This Convention represents what is probably the most progressive hazardous waste legislation in the world. It resulted as Africa's direct response to the Basel Convention's failure to ban waste shipments from industrialized countries to the developing world (see related article). Mr. Wawa O. Leba of the OAU Secretariat in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia explained, "After Basel, Africans realized that we would have to take the responsibility for protecting our own continent as it was clear that many industrialized nations were unwilling to help us do so." Mr. Lucas Tandap of the United Nations Economic Commission of Africa (ECA) stated further that "we are very proud of this effort and it is our sincere hope that this convention will serve as a model for other regions of the developing world wishing to act against the production and dumping of hazardous wastes." In Bamako the Convention was signed by 12 OAU countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Guinea, Libya, Niger, Mali, Senegal and Togo. The Bamako Convention will enter into force after the necessary 10 African countries ratify it. All African countries, with the exception of South Africa, are eligible to sign and ratify the convention. (Source: Bamako Convention, OAU Press Release, January 29, 1991.) INSIDE: *Greenpeace Releases New Waste Trade Inventory *Poland Suffers Waste Invasion *Canadian Waste Import Firm Sold to U.S. Company *U.S. City Tries to Ship Sludge to Tibet *Nuke Wastes Returned to Germany *Riot Police Squash Peaceful Anti-Waste Trade Protest in U.S. [Greenbase Inventory October 27, 1991 ] =======[#]======= [] TL: GREENPEACE WASTE TRADE UPDATE VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 (GP) SO: Greenpeace International DT: MARCH 22, 1991 Keywords: toxics hazardous waste trade greenpeace digests gp greenpeace / [part 3 of 7] *** NOTES FROM THE EDITORS *** People often ask Greenpeace where in the Third World wastes are being shipped for disposal. Fortunately, since 1988 we have not witnessed any country outside North America or western Europe openly import any waste for dumping in a landfill or burning in a toxic waste incinerator. So what is the problem, you might ask? Why is Greenpeace trying to stop dumping that is not really happening and that most Third World countries ban? Most Waste Trade is Totally Unmonitored and Unregulated Lawmakers in North America and Europe have exempted a lot of toxic waste from being regulated as hazardous waste. These exemptions allow such wastes to escape the notification and approval procedures required for wastes which are officially classified as "hazardous." The United States, for example, does not even monitor the export of household garbage, ash from garbage incinerators, and most radioactive waste, because these wastes are not classified as "hazardous." The infamous wandering journeys of the Khian Sea (loaded with incinerator ash from Philadelphia) and the Mobro "garbage barge" (carrying trash and medical waste from New York) were legal under U.S. law. Anyone, today, could load a ship with contaminated garbage or incinerator ash or sewage sludge in any U.S. or European Community port, sail this ship to any other country in the world, and dump the cargo -- without the importing country's consent, and without violating U.S. or E.C. law. Waste Shipments to the Third World are Actually Increasing, Masked by the Label of "Recycling" Greenpeace's examination of waste trade proposals has revealed a recent and alarming trend toward claiming a pretext for recycling in waste exports. This trend is actually being promoted by lawmakers in Europe and North America. Members of the European Community are trying to introduce loopholes in a proposed waste export regulation that would authorize wastes bound for "further use" in any country in the world. In the recent Greenpeace report Poland: The Waste Invasion, a full 62% of those schemes where the fate of the waste is recorded claimed some sort of "further use" pretext. Similarly, in Greenpeace's "Inventory of Waste Trade in the Caribbean Region," the figure is 63%. Claiming a recycling pretext is an easy way to disguise economically motivated waste export. Recycling usually implies an environmentally sound activity, but where hazardous wastes are concerned it is often a very deadly and dirty business. Millions of tons wastes exported for "recycling" are shipped to non-ferrous metals waste smelters in Asia and Latin America. Toxic wastes are burned there to extract selected metals from imported wastes -- but the wastes commonly contain dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals and chlorinated contaminants which are either released into air emissions, or into incineration residues which are dumped on the ground. [Greenbase Inventory October 27, 1991 ] =======[#]======= [] TL: GREENPEACE WASTE TRADE UPDATE VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 (GP) SO: Greenpeace International DT: MARCH 22, 1991 Keywords: toxics hazardous waste trade greenpeace digests gp greenpeace / [part 4 of 7] Third World waste smelters are notorious polluters. The Thor Chemical mercury smelter in South Africa, which burns wastes from Europe and North America, has caused extraordinarily high levels of mercury contamination in a nearby stream. According to the Brazilian environmental group, OIKOS, a smelter near Sao Paolo, run by a company called Produquimica, has severely damaged the health of its workers. OIKOS obtained evidence of smelter workers bleeding from the nose, coughing up blood and even dying from the workplace. In Taiwan, as documented in the Center for Investigative Reporting's (CIR) recent publication, Global Dumping Ground, a company called Acme operates a lead smelter which, until last year, burned used batteries from Japan and the United States. A local doctor discovered that, of sixty-four workers at the plant, thirty-one had lead poisoning. Lead emissions were so prevalent that children attending school downwind of Acme had to wear cloth masks over their mouths. This severe impact on the health of local workers and children forced Eugene Chien, the head of Taiwan's Environmental Protection Agency to ban all used battery imports in 1990. Chien told the CIR that the lesson he's learned is "don't import from the United States -- it causes too many problems for us." The scrap metal recycling industry, said Chien, "is no good for our country's health... It causes so much of a problem with air pollution, water pollution, and very serious damage to our rivers." Greenpeace is just beginning to document the full impact of waste exports from North America and Europe to Third World recyclers. Expect to hear more from us on this massive waste trade in the near future. Waste Trade is Expanding Between Industrialized Countries Canada remains the United States' biggest toxic waste dumpsite. U.S. waste generators ship wastes to Canada for the same reasons that other companies ship to the Third World: lower waste disposal costs and fewer disposal regulations. It is simply cheaper and easier to dump wastes in Canada than in the United States. The same situation applies to the European Community, where poorer areas like eastern Germany, and rural parts of France, Spain and the U.K. have become major dumping grounds for the rest of the E.C. Waste shipments to these regions have increased as the rest of the world implements waste imports bans. As long as wastes can be exported to regions of economic, political and regulatory weakness, waste generators will continue their ever-increasing production of toxic waste. National waste export bans will reduce waste generators' ability to avoid responsibility for their pollution, and will help force industries to implement the only real solution to the world's waste crisis: clean production. [Greenbase Inventory October 27, 1991 ] =======[#]======= [] TL: GREENPEACE WASTE TRADE UPDATE VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 (GP) SO: Greenpeace International DT: MARCH 22, 1991 Keywords: toxics hazardous waste trade greenpeace digests gp greenpeace / [part 5 of 7] Industrialized Countries Refuse to Close Their Borders to Exports When Greenpeace began its campaign against the international waste trade, just three countries banned waste imports; today, at least 83 have implemented total waste import bans. Despite such strong opposition, waste merchants have redoubled their efforts to dump wastes on the Third World. And industrialized countries continue to demonstrate little desire to curtail these efforts. Only two countries in the industrialized North ban waste exports to the developing world -- Norway and Italy. As long as the rich world's borders remain open to the export of toxic waste, the rest of the world remains vulnerable to the threat of toxic terrorism. Hundreds of waste brokers based in cities like Geneva, Washington, Frankfurt and Tokyo continue to hatch plots to dump Northern toxics on the world's less industrialized countries. Waste brokers feel that national import bans in the Third World are nearly meaningless, and that these bans will be lifted, if the price is right. This is why we see the recurrence of schemes targeting countries like Papua New Guinea, Poland, Jamaica, and Guinea -- countries that have strong policies against waste imports and continue to refuse the overtures of the merchants of poison. *** FEATURE STORIES *** GREENPEACE RELEASES FIFTH EDITION OF WASTE TRADE INVENTORY On February 14, the Greenpeace Waste Trade Campaign released a 420 page report documenting waste trade around the world. The fifth edition of The International Trade in Wastes: A Greenpeace Inventory catalogues over 1000 attempts to export over 160 million tons of waste since 1986. The Inventory reveals the efforts of heavily industrialized countries to maintain an open global trade in waste and the efforts of poorer countries to battle this deadly trade. Greenpeace estimates that waste traders have actually exported over ten million tons of waste since 1986 -- including over five million to the so-called "developing" world. While the Inventory is the world's most comprehensive publication on this deadly industry, it probably reveals only the "tip of the iceberg." Much toxic waste is exported from heavily industrialized countries legally though totally unmonitored and unregulated. The report further reveals that the latest trend in the international waste trade is the promotion of waste trade cloaked under the agreeable name of "recycling." The Inventory is anything but light reading -- it is a reference guide to a growing deadly trade. Greenpeace hopes that the document will lead to a better understanding of the waste trade industry and why it must stop. To order a copy of The International Trade in Wastes: A Greenpeace Inventory, please send a check for US$20.00 payable to "Greenpeace Waste Trade Project" to Greenpeace Waste Trade Project, 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009, USA. GREENPEACE WASTE TRADE CAMPAIGN EXPANDS TO INCLUDE OTHER HAZARDOUS EXPORTS Toxic waste is only one piece of the global movement of hazardous industries. Transnational corporations routinely export poisonous products and hazardous technologies to developing countries. It has become very apparent that an environmental victory in one country could spell an environmental and health disaster for the people of another country. European and North American corporations are pushing their poisons and factories all over the world, even after these polluting practices have been banned in their home countries. Greenpeace is identifying and investigating as many cases of hazardous exports as possible. We are particularly interested in cases where a company or agency is exporting a product or process which is banned, restricted, or obsolete in the country of manufacture. Greenpeace is concerned about hazardous exports because: *asbestos, a carcinogen virtually banned in most industrialized countries since the Seventies is still routinely used even in schools and hospitals in many developing countries; *leaded gasoline, on its way out in North America and western Europe, is still manufactured in those regions and exported abroad. Lead, a major air contaminant in many large cities is the cause of nervous disorders and loss of intelligence in children; *pesticides which are banned, restricted, or unregistered in the U.S. are still manufactured for export by U.S. companies, a practice which results in widespread poisoning of farmers in developing countries; *posing as "environmental service" companies, western waste disposal firms who have done business by dumping on communities in the industrialized countries, are preparing to enter eastern European markets; *overseas military bases are the source of enormous quantities of hazardous wastes and are rarely subject to environmental regulations or enforcement and *free Trade agreements and external debt have reduced the ability of many countries to reject foreign direct investments, even if those investments cause environmental or public health damage. Greenpeace appreciates hearing about all kinds of hazardous export projects; past, present or future, rejected, actual or proposed. We are also interested in examples of clean production and clean development projects that have occurred as alternatives to polluting projects. The success of Greenpeace's Waste Trade Campaign has depended on the readership of this Update and the information you have shared with us. Please continue to help us with information and tips about all types of hazardous exports from the industrialized world. Please write to: Kenny Bruno Hazardous Exports Prevention Project Greenpeace 709 Centre St. Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 Phone: (617) 980-0300 Fax: (617) 983-0909 LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN ENVIRONMENT MINISTERS, CENTRAL AME WASTE IMPORTS At the Seventh Ministerial Meeting on the Environment in Latin America and the Caribbean, held in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad & Tobago in October 1990, ministers pledged to adopt strong measures to stop the onslaught of waste trade proposals targeting their region. Countries represented at the meeting included Argentina, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Chile, Dominica, The Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela. The environment ministers vowed to "protect the region by prohibiting the entry, under any circumstances, of all types of hazardous wastes, toxic and radioactive waste." This position was echoed by the presidents of six Central American countries, who met in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, on December 15-17. The presidents of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama signed an agreement calling for new laws prohibiting the import of toxic wastes under any circumstances. Every Latin American and Caribbean country has broadly supported the concept of banning the region to waste imports. At least nineteen countries in the region have legally-binding policies prohibiting all waste imports. However, most have no binding laws declaring their countries off-limits to foreign wastes, and Greenpeace has noticed that the region has become a favorite target of U.S.-based waste brokers. The next logical step for the Caribbean and Latin American region is to adopt a comprehensive and legally-binding ban, similar to those included in the Lome Convention and the recently signed Bamako Convention (see above story) thereby closing off another vast area of the world to the deadly waste trade business. (Sources: Greenpeace International, International Environment Reporter, December 19, 1990.) SOUTH AFRICA "BANS WASTE IMPORTS" BUT ALLOWS THEM TO CONTINUE Following a highly-charged debate on waste imports in South Africa, the government's environment minister, Gert Kotze, announced in August 1990 that South Africa is off-limits to waste imports. Greenpeace then contacted the Department of Environmental Affairs to find out how this ban would affect Thor Chemical's mercury waste imports (see above story as well as the feature story "The Gods Must Be Crazy" in the new Waste Trade Inventory). An official with the department explained that while the government's policy was a "total ban" on waste imports, "we don't regard the mercury imported by Thor as a waste. It is a 'raw material.'" This argument was repeated by Bill Visagie, the department's director-general, at an environmental conference in Johannesburg in early November. Once again, misleading labels of "recycling" are allowing waste traders to circumvent import bans. This reminds us of when toxic incinerator ash from Philadelphia was dumped in Haiti labeled as "fertilizer" and was sent to Guinea as "construction material." Only this time, double-speak is the official policy of the South African government. Of course, mercury wastes shipped to Thor are not "raw materials." Along with deadly mercury, Thor's waste imports are heavily laced with non-mercury contaminants that are not "recycled" at Thor's South African mercury smelter. For example, between 30-45% of the volume of a typical American Cyanamid mercury waste shipment to South Africa is contaminated with non- recoverable chlorinated toxics. When burned in a smelter, these contaminants likely recombine to form highly-toxic forms of dioxin, which escape the smokestack and fall on the surrounding countryside and villages. Public opposition to waste shipments to Thor, along with a continuing investigation of the causes for Thor's massive mercury discharges, have caused at least one major waste shipper to stop its waste shipments to South Africa. In January 1991, George Sella, the CEO of American Cyanamid told Rev. Andy Smith, an anti- apartheid activist in the U.S., that Cyanamid has not exported any toxic wastes to Thor since December 1989. Sella, however, would not rule out shipments to Thor in the future. THE GLOBAL BATTLE AGAINST WASTE TRADE A Report from the Front Lines Bound Brook, N.J., USA, April 14, 1990 -- Club-swinging riot police today broke up a march by environmental, anti-apartheid and labor union groups to protest shipments of mercury wastes from American Cyanamid Co. to South Africa. Six people were arrested and dragged or carried away. Among them were Peter Bahouth, the executive director of Greenpeace U.S.A., and Bob Coen, a film crew member for a public television program. They were charged with disorderly conduct and later released without bond. A two-county S.W.A.T. team of 75 police in full riot gear moved in on about 300 marchers as they neared Lederle Laboratories, a division of American Cyanamid Co. Among Lederle's waste products are mercury wastes that are shipped to a South African plant for reclamation. The South African plant, Thor Chemicals Inc., has polluted an adjacent Zulu valley with the toxic mercury. The marchers, including several South African labor leaders, were trying to deliver an eight-foot-high placard signed by many of the 400 people who had held a peaceful rally with African music and dancing at a nearby soccer field. Bahouth and others complained that police had reacted with undue force to break up a peaceful protest. "It was a lot of people chanting, that's what it was," Bahouth said. "What happened was like something that would happen in South Africa." Richard Thornburgh, chief of detectives for the Somerset County police department, insisted that people had to be restrained. we weren't there to bust anybody's chops," he said. The shipments and mercury poisoning in a stream behind the plant were disclosed by the Post-Dispatch last November. Last week, a government agency ordered the plant closed until problems are worked out. Muzi Buthelezi of the Chemical Workers Industrial Union in South Africa said at the rally that it had become the first environmental story to attract front-page attention in his country. American Cyanamid announced on Friday that it was "examining our mercury waste alternatives . . . We are conducting another worldwide search for other sources to recover and recycle this material." The company has said that Thor Chemicals, the mercury reclamation plant in South Africa, is the only plant in the world equipped to treat mercury wastes. American Cyanamid also said that it was looking at ways to eliminate mercury in making the engine seals and other rubber like products at Lederle Labs. Saturday's melee took place beneath an underpass on a public road about 150 yards from the plant. Police in black or camouflage fatigues and helmets with shields suddenly moved into formation and began wielding nightsticks to drive the marchers back. Many in the crowd were struck. The racially mixed crowd finally dispersed amid shouts of "amandla" - the Zulu word for power - after American Cyanamid officials emerged from the plant and accepted the big, wooden placard. They put it on top of a blue Ford station wagon and drove away. The police attack appeared largely unprovoked. Coen, 31, was arrested while filming people being dragged away. He is a cameraman for South Africa Now, an Emmy Award-winning program shown weekly on 75 public television stations in the U.S. and in many countries. "I was filming and they just took me," he said. Valerie Kowal, 49, of nearby Bridgewater, was dragged to the ground while standing on the fringe of the march. She was shaking badly afterward and covered with mud as she tried to fix her broken glasses. A 16-year-old boy who tried to befriend Kowal by grabbing the club of a policeman was struck before being dragged away and arrested. He was not identified. Bill Capowski, 24, of New York City, another of those arrested, claimed later that he had done nothing more than carry a sign warning of mercury's dangers. The riot squad was made up of police from the Somerset County and nearby Middlesex County police departments. Police said those who were arrested had broken through police lines. Nicolas Bissell, Somerset County prosecutor, defended the police action in an interview, saying that it was necessary to protect the plant. "There are things in there that if damaged could cause severe environmental problems," Bissell said. (Editors' Note: This article originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 15, 1990, and is reprinted here with permission of the author.) PROTESTS AGAINST WASTE SHIPMENTS TO SOUTH AFRICA CONTINUE Bound Brook, New Jersey, was the first of a series of protests against toxic waste shipments to South Africa beginning last April. At Cato Ridge, South Africa, hundreds of environmentalists, farmers, shanty-dwellers and labor activists joined together in what is believed to be the broadest protest against environmental destruction to date in South Africa, marching to the gates of Thor's waste import plant. The protest was led by South Africa's leading environmental activist group, Earthlife Africa. Earthlife has investigated Thor's plant, and its impact on workers and people living downstream of the mercury smelter. "There are people dependent on that stream for irrigation, swimming, bathing and clothes washing. There is potential for a big disaster," Earthlife's Chris Albertyn told the United Press International in April. Other protests included a die-in at Cyanamid's South African headquarters near Johannesburg, rallies in Durban and at the U.S. embassy in Pretoria, a march to Thor's U.S. headquarters in Norwalk, Connecticut, and a rally outside Cyanamid's annual shareholder's meeting, in Portland, Maine. In late 1990, hundreds of people belonging to the new environmental letter-writing network, Global Response, sent letters Cyanamid's CEO, George Sella, protesting waste shipments to South Africa. Activist pressure continued in December, when hundreds of schoolchildren, church leaders and other activists braved cold winds in a candlelight vigil outside Cyanamid's world headquarters in Wayne, New Jersey. Keron Williams, a schoolgirl from Newark, New Jersey, said "We came out here for our brothers and sisters in South Africa, because if we don't lift up our voices, they will never get help." OTHER POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS KENYA, NAMIBIA AND ZIMBABWE OPPOSE WASTE TRADE At a meeting in Nairobi last August, Kenyan Minister for Environment and Natural Resources Dr. Mjoroge Mungai criticized the dumping of hazardous chemical wastes in Africa and called for a total ban on the hazardous waste trade. (Source: Xinhua English Language News Service, Thursday, August 9, 1990.) On June 13, 1990 the Namibian Prime Minister Hage Geingob affirmed that his country would not import waste from abroad. (Source: Xinhua English Language News Service, Wednesday, June 13, 1990.) Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe addressed the World Health Organization assembly in Geneva, Switzerland on May 9, 1990 and said that the dumping of waste in the developing world would have a very damaging effect on the health of those countries involved, many of which already faced severe environmental problems. (Source: West Africa, June 4-10, 1990, pg. 955.) CHILE BECOMES THE 83rd COUNTRY TO BAN WASTE IMPORTS OUTRIGHT On January 31, the Chilean Congress voted unanimously to ban waste imports from other countries. The Congress deemed this action necessary as the United Nations Environment Programme's 1989 Basel Convention on the transboundary movement of wastes did not impede nations from renting or selling areas to deposit such waste as nuclear waste. The Congress also addressed the problems inherent in waste trade under the guise of recycling, stating that "the recycling of imported waste was a covert way to get rid of toxic waste by industrialized nations." Chile joins 82 different countries who have closed their borders to waste imports of all kinds. (Source: Xinhua English Language News Service, January 31, 1991.) TURKEY LEGISLATES WASTE IMPORT BAN In late July, Turkey drafted a bill that would set into law a long-standing Turkish policy against waste imports. Officials said the bill bans the import of hazardous wastes, and that importers would be fined no less than 100,000 U.S. dollars. (Source: Xinhua English Language News Service, July 31, 1990). CANADA BANS PCB WASTE EXPORTS -- ILLEGAL EXPORTS CONTINUE? Overseas shipments of PCB-contaminated wastes have been banned under Canadian law. In a statement written on December 13, 1989, Canada's federal Minister of Environment, told waste exporters: "Overseas PCB shipment have been conducted safely for several years: however, as a leading industrialized nation, Canada must take collective responsibility to deal with its own PCB wastes at home. Environment Canada believes that until disposal facilities are available, it is safer to store such wastes rather than ship them to other countries where they might be turned back." The new policy was implemented largely in reaction to strong protests by people in the United Kingdom against several PCB shipments from Canada in the summer of 1989. PCB waste shipments from Canada to the U.S. were already banned under the terms of a 1986 treaty between the two countries. Despite this ban, the Canadian electric utility giant, Hydro- Quebec, allegedly shipped PCB-contaminated wastes to the United States in 1989 and 1990. Tens of thousands of liters of PCB- contaminated waste oil from Hydro-Quebec were discovered at a waste transfer station in Niagara Falls. The New York company was Frontier Chemical Waste Process Inc. A joint investigation by Canada and the United States is being carried out regarding the allegedly illegal shipments. (Source: Greenpeace Canada; Daily Globe and Mail (Toronto), May 11, 1990). BASEL CONVENTION UPDATE On March 22, 1989, negotiations for a global treaty governing the rules of waste trade were concluded in Basel, Switzerland. The so-called Basel Convention was widely criticized by Third World countries for failing to ban the export of wastes from heavily industrialized regions. The convention merely borrowed, and lightly revised, existing laws on waste trade in North America and the European Community. Basel's failure to confront the problems inherent in the deadly waste trade industry has been widely recognized, and few countries have rushed to ratify the convention. Once twenty countries ratify Basel, it will enter force. Nearly two years after the negotiations concluded, only six countries have ratified Basel. These countries are: France, Hungary, Jordan, Norway, Saudi Arabia and Switzerland. COUNTRIES THAT BAN WASTE IMPORTS AS OF MARCH 1, 1991 Algeria, Angola, Antarctica (World Ban), Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, Comoros, Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Indonesia, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Kiribati, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, 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, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Western Samoa, Zaire, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Total # of countries banning waste imports = 83. Czechoslovakia, Mexico, Poland and Yugoslavia have partial bans on waste trade allowing waste imports for recycling purposes. *** WASTE TRADE SCHEMES *** EUROPE GREENPEACE UNCOVERS WASTE INVASION OF POLAND Poland's maiden free-market society has spurred not only an influx of Western capital but also a plethora of Western toxic waste shipments exceeding 27,000 tons, earmarked for incineration or dumping. In a 45-page report with companion film footage, Greenpeace points to 64 known Western waste trade schemes totalling 22 million metric tons, an amount equal to 1,273 pounds of waste for each Polish citizen. Entitled, Poland: The Waste Invasion, the Greenpeace report reveals how a significant portion of waste secretly enters Poland from countries like West Germany, Austria, the United States and Sweden. The document also outlines Poland's waste import ban and how Western waste traders are shipping waste to Poland under the guise of "recycling." "Since opening their borders to industrial companies from the West, the Poles have been immediately 'rewarded' with the effluent of capitalism, not affluence," said Andreas Bernstorff, a Greenpeace campaigner against waste trade. Greenpeace's report demonstrates that Western interests will exploit any opportunity to dump wastes on less wealthy countries. Poland's environment ministry has pledged vigilance against waste imports. In July, the Polish government began to enforce a total ban on toxic waste imports, which imposes three year imprisonment on illegal waste traders. Wojciech Swiatek, director of the ministry's inspectorate, said: "We are now able to catch almost every transport. We hope to reduce this soon to zero." Greenpeace also released film footage of Polish farmers who dismantled an incinerator on a Polish army base, constructed to burn Western wastes. The video also documents a Polish warehouse full of West German wastes shipped in 1988 under the pretext of recycling. The waste was later found to contain dioxin and other deadly compounds. "The responsibility for halting the waste injury to our Polish neighbors lies with those countries responsible for making the wastes in the first place," said Bernstorff. (Sources: Greenpeace International, The Independent (London) October 23, 1990.) HAMBURG STEELWORKS POLLUTE SILESIAN ENVIRONMENT Greenpeace Acts to Prevent More Illegal Dumping of Chemical Waste in Poland Filter dusts containing toxic heavy metals and dioxins from Hamburger Stahlwerke HSW (steelworks in Hamburg, Germany) have been transported to Poland, Greenpeace has discovered in new research. Under the misleading name "zinc concentrate," 31,000 tonnes of filter dust, contaminated with cadmium, lead, chromium, arsenic and dioxin, have reached Poland since 1989. The company responsible for the toxic waste exports was Handel Transport Abfallverwertung (HTA) of Duisburg, Germany. 25,000 tonnes of the waste have already been processed for recovery of the approximately 20 per cent zinc constituent at the Boleslaw zinc smelting works in Silesia. Boleslaw received 80 marks per tonne of waste that they imported. HTA took back the zinc clinker that was recovered and sold it on the West German market for approximately US$600.00 per metric tonne. HTA was expected to supply Poland with over 365,000 tonnes in five years. Environmental damage appears to be extensive in the Boleslaw region. Because the Boleslaw factory operates without waste gas filters, all poisons enter the environment uncontrolled. West European environmental protection laws would have required that all heavy metals and sulfur be extracted systematically in processing and recycling such wastes. Polish authorities at Szczecin harbor recently intercepted a shipment of 7,100 tonnes of the HTA's dust. The shipment is presently on open dumps near the harbor. Another 1700 tonnes of HTA waste have been stored in the harbor of Rotterdam since January 18. Greenpeace activists from Germany and the Netherlands recently informed their respective Environment Ministries of another HTA shipment to Poland and intercepted it en route. The Dutch Ministry of Environment then took samples of the waste in Rotterdam and analyzed them. The analysis proved that the shipment contained only 20% zinc and was poisoned with heavy metals like: copper, nickel, mercury, chromium, cadmium and arsenic. The percentages of cadmium and arsenic were 8 to 10 times above the legal limit of chemical waste, and the amount of chromium was 22 times greater than acceptable levels. Because HTA has no license to store the chemical waste, the zinc residues remain Rotterdam. The German Ministry of Environment is deciding how best to treat the waste and where it must be shipped. The shipment of 1,700 tonnes of waste is being held by the port police in Rotterdam. Both the Polish and Dutch authorities are demanding its transport back to Germany - so far in vain. Greenpeace campaigner Andreas Bernstorff said, that this was "the biggest and most malicious scheme I know out of 32 waste trade projects from Germany to Poland either attempted or carried through in the last two years. The Poles have enough problems, they need help for solving them, and they can do perfectly well without our toxic waste." On March 4, the Polish Minister of the Environment met with his German counterpart, Klaus Toepfer, in Bonn and called for reimportation of the dusts. Toepfer agreed that the wastes should be returned back to Germany as "new Polish legislation does not allow the processing of such materials any longer." Bernstorff said: "now we want to see legal consequences by the government, to date there is no legal instrument to force the companies to take their toxics back. There is not even a legal instrument to force industry to respect the Polish import ban." [Greenbase Inventory October 27, 1991 ] =======[#]======= [] TL: GREENPEACE WASTE TRADE UPDATE VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 (GP) SO: Greenpeace International DT: MARCH 22, 1991 Keywords: toxics hazardous waste trade greenpeace digests gp greenpeace / [part 6 of 7] GREENPEACE CATCHES NUCLEAR WASTE SHIPMENT TO SCOTLAND, FORCES RETURN TO GERMANY On January 14, 1991, Greenpeace activists from the Netherlands and Germany uncovered a shipment of 26 spent nuclear fuel rods which were on their way to Scotland. They had originally come from a German nuclear research reactor and were intended to be exported to Dounreay, a nuclear reprocessing plant in Northern Scotland. The radioactive shipment was intercepted by the Dutch ministry of the environment, who subsequently ordered the shipment back to Germany. Dock workers in Rotterdam refused to load the waste onto a non-purpose built ship which would have been a violation of an International Transport Workers Federation resolution adopted in 1990. "This was the first time ever that nuclear waste had to 'return to sender'," said Kerstin Eitner, Greenpeace's international reprocessing campaign coordinator. "We hope that in the future nuclear power plants will keep their waste where it was produced in the first place in order to avoid 'ghost shipments' which nobody wants to deal with." There was a fair chance, she claimed, that dock workers in other countries would follow suit and refuse to handle radioactive cargo on non-purpose built ships as well. Greenpeace also pointed out the specific risks associated with shipments that contain weapons grade material. Spent fuel from research reactors, as opposed to light water reactors, consists of highly enriched uranium (90.5 %) which is suitable for the fabrication of nuclear weapons. "It is lunacy to transport this kind of material in these times," said Eitner. "If Greenpeace is able to find these shipments, so are terrorists." (Sources: Greenpeace Germany, Greenpeace Netherlands, Greenpeace U.K.) SWISS TOXIC WASTE "O.K." BY U.K. STANDARDS Switzerland does not worry too much about its increasing waste production. That is because it has an open dump ready and willing to whisk away its toxic troubles. The dump is in Wales in the United Kingdom where thousands of tonnes of Swiss waste have been landfilled. Swiss environmental regulations would have required the Swiss firm, Refonda, to pay high disposal costs for their toxic waste. But, in November 1989, Refonda opted for the quick and dirty method of waste disposal. They exported 503 tonnes of aluminum filter dust to a landfill in Swansea, U.K., run by Max Recovery. The waste was held up en route in the Netherlands by Rotterdam harbor police who suspected dangerously high levels of toxic chemicals and heavy metals in the dust. The shipment was again delayed by Swansea City Council pollution control officers when it arrived in the U.K. After months of negotiations with the Swansea City Council and Her Majesty's Inspector of Pollution, Max Recovery was given permission to landfill the waste. Greenpeace U.K. waste trade campaigner Madeleine Cobbing said, "I am shocked that Switzerland is using the U.K. as its dustbin and shocked that the U.K. is allowing it to do so. In the U.K. we think of Switzerland as a clean country. Now it seems this reputation is only maintained at the expense of dumping on the dirty man of Europe." An additional 500 tonnes of filter dust is reportedly on its way to Max Recovery from Refonda. (Source: Greenpeace U.K.; Wales on Sunday, January 27, 1991.) Other European Schemes, in brief... In a cooperative joint venture to deal with mounting waste disposal problems, Sweden and Norway plan to ship each other various kinds of toxic wastes and to share the cost of a new hazardous waste treatment facility that will handle industrial waste. Environmentalists in Sweden have been vigorously protesting new proposals for waste treatment facilities. Because Sweden's ability to manage domestic waste is nearing capacity, the facility will be located in Norway. Sweden also plans to accept Norwegian inorganic toxic waste at one of its sites. (Source: International Environment Reporter, January 16, 1991.) Toxic European chemical wastes shipped to the delta village of Koko, Nigeria, between 1987 and 1988 -- and forced by the Nigerian government to return to Europe in the summer of 1988 aboard the unwelcome waste trading ship Karin B -- may soon be burned in the United Kingdom. The British firm, ReChem International, plans to receive the waste but refuses to disclose where they will burn it. (Source: Guardian, January 31, 1991.) NORTH AMERICA U.S. GROUP PURCHASES MAIN CANADIAN DUMP FOR U.S. WASTES Canadian Agency Shares Pollution Data With U.S. Buyers, But Not With Local Citizens The largest importer of U.S. wastes in Canada has been sold, ironically, to a U.S. company. Stablex Co., which operates a massive landfill in Blainville, Quebec -- near Montreal -- was purchased by the Concord Resources Group of Pennsylvania in January. Now, the profits to be made from shipping wastes to Stablex will be kept entirely in the United States. Residents near Stablex's Blainville landfill believe that it is contaminating the local water table. The Quebec Environment Department "Green Police" have been investigating pollution caused by the Blainville toxic waste dump since 1989, but the department refused to publicly disclose the results of repeated testing of waste discharges from the landfill. While government officials kept test results from the public, they divulged their secret data to the Concord Group before Concord bought Stablex. Greenpeace Canada waste trade campaigner Yves Corriveau asked, "How is it that a foreign company can have access to files from the Ministry of Environment, while a group of local citizens who live near the potential environmental catastrophe is refused access?" In 1988, over 70% of the waste dumped at Stablex came from the United States. On February 15, 1991, the Environment Department finally publicized a summary of its findings. The report announced that the Stablex runoff posed no short-term risk to the health of the citizens, but according to Corriveau, the department "refused to disclose at least eighty percent of their information." The Blainville citizens' group, ARBRE has filed suit in Quebec's Access to Information Court against the Ministry of Environment for its refusal to inform the public about the analysis. (Sources: Greenpeace Canada; La Presse (Montreal), January 31, 1991; La Gazette (Montreal), February 1, 1991; Globe and Mail (Toronto), February 4, 1991.) U.S. AGENCIES PROSECUTE ILLEGAL WASTE EXPORTERS U.S. government investigators are finally beginning to enforce waste export regulations which are believed to be widely ignored by waste generators and brokers. These regulations do not ban waste exports, but require hazardous waste exporters to obtain the prior approval of importing countries. In 1990, U.S. government agencies took action against several actual and planned illegal waste exports to Canada, Mexico, Spain and Equatorial Guinea. Last March, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued the first four fines ever against violators of hazardous waste export regulations. The companies fined for illegal exports were Triangle Metallurgical of Granite City, Illinois; Beelman Truck Co. of St. Libory, Illinois; Dow Corning Corp. of Midland, Michigan; and Pennwalt Corp. of Wyandotte, Michigan. Triangle Metallurgical was assessed $41,500 for sending lead and cadmium-contaminated waste to Viscaya, Spain without receiving prior approval from the Spanish government. Beelman truck was fined $11,000. The other companies paid smaller fines for exporting waste to Ontario without prior notification to the Canadian government. (Sources: EPA Environmental News Release, Region V, Chicago, Illinois, March 13, 1990; Environment Today, Vol 1, No. 3., May 1990.) In April, the EPA proposed fining a Stratford, Connecticut-based company Textron Lycoming $254,728 for shipping hazardous metal sludge in Canada without obtaining prior consent. The EPA charged that the firm shipped at least 834 truckloads of metal hydroxide sludge, a hazardous byproduct of its manufacturing process, to the Stablex toxic waste dump near Montreal (see related story). The sludge passed through a Vermont border crossing without getting the required prior consent from the Canadian government or acknowledgement from EPA. (Source: Environment Reporter, April 13, 1990.) In July, the U.S. EPA and the Mexican Secretariat of Urban Development and Ecology (SEDUE) located and retrieved 86 drums of hazardous waste illegally exported from the U.S. and stored in a pottery kiln warehouse in Tijuana, Mexico. (Source: Terry Wilson, US EPA, 7/27/90.) And in December, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accused three waste brokers from the Houston, Texas firm, FMF Corporation, of swindling American investors out of approximately US$900,000 in a failed scheme to dump U.S. radioactive waste in Equatorial Guinea, perhaps the world's most impoverished country. It is not believed that FMF shipped any waste was actually shipped to Equatorial Guinea. The three FMF officers, Charles Brandes, Abraham Greenspan and B.F. Winborn, allegedly presented falsified waste trade contracts to some 30 different investors in attempts to convince them that they had a legitimate agreement between the governments of Equatorial Guinea and the United States. The FMF officers are due in court on May 10 and face criminal fraud charges and fines of up to US$1,000,000 each. (Source: Inside NAC, December 31, 1990.) ERRATA The editors sincerely apologize for a mistaken reference to the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC) in the April 1990 issue of the Waste Trade Update. The IITC is an arm of the American Indian Movement which works with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, and has been a powerful force against toxic waste dumping on Indian lands in North America. For more information on the Council, please contact: IITC Information Office, 710 Clayton St. #1, San Francisco, CA 94117. Phone number: 415-566-0251. ASIA AND THE SOUTH PACIFIC U.S. CITY PLANS TO SHIP TOXIC SEWAGE SLUDGE TO TIBET Tibetan Regional Government Agrees to Import 1,500,000 Tons of Sludge as "Fertilizer" The United States city of Baltimore, Maryland, has secured a tentative agreement with a California waste broker firm, California Enterprise, to ship 20,000 tons of the city's sewage sludge waste to Tibet, China, in exchange for a payment of US$ 1,440,000. (Source: letter from George Winfield, deputy director, city of Baltimore Dept. of Public Works, to Chant Sun of California Enterprise, January 29, 1990. California Enterprise is located at: 554 25th Ave., San Francisco, California 94121. Mr. Sun is the president of California Enterprise. Another official of the company is named Dominick Auditore.) Much more than 20,000 tons of U.S. waste might eventually be shipped to Tibet. According to documents obtained last month by Greenpeace through a Freedom of Information Act request to the U.S. EPA, the Chinese brokers for this scheme, Hainan Sunlitt Group, have the approval of the Tibetan Autonomous Region government to ship up to one and a half million tons of sludge from the United States to the Tibetan Native Livestock Product Company. According to a Baltimore port official, the sludge will be used in China as "fertilizer." (Sources: Cable from M. Lilly of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to the U.S. State Department, September 1990; letter from Paul Farragut, Marketing Representative, Maryland Port Administration, to Secretary Martin Walsh, Maryland Department of the Environment, November 13, 1990.) The deal has been delayed by confusion over whether the central Chinese government has approved the sludge imports. In June 1990, the state of Maryland tentatively approved California Enterprise's application to send Baltimore's sludge to China last June, pending the approval of the Chinese government. But the government has not yet given any official reaction to this scheme. According to Hainan Sunlitt Group, a Chinese company that plans to broker the waste shipments within China, "municipal waste water sewage" does not require any government approval "according to the Chinese Government relevant import rules." (Source: letter from Yu Zhen Tao, general manager of the Hainan Sunlitt Group Co. China, to Chant Sun, California Enterprise. The Hainan Sunlitt Group is located at: Nantian Hotel, Fl. 2, Haikou, Hainan, China; phone: 74888-210; fax (0750) 72055; telex 45053 NTHTL.) It is unclear whether Chinese regulations require government approval of any waste imports before they occur. A U.S. embassy official in Beijing said in September, "Chinese regulations and procedures on the import of wastes, hazardous or non-hazardous, are not yet standardized, codified, or well-publicized." The official added that "although China does import some waste products for recycling, e.g., scrap iron and waste paper, we understand that [the China] National Environmental Protection Agency has blocked the import of several potentially hazardous waste materials, such as batteries and used tires." (Source: Lilly cable.) In October, U.S. Secretary of State James Baker asked embassy officials to meet with the Chinese government to clarify whether authorities have given their approval of the sludge import scheme. Embassy officials received no word of China's position, as of February 15, 1991. As the scheme stalled, Baltimore and Maryland officials expressed a mixture of eagerness to complete the deal, and concern about its political implications. On November 13, a representative of the Baltimore Port Administration urged Maryland's Secretary of the Environment to speed the approval process for the plan because "if such a cargo can be exported, it would not only create...employment opportunities [at the Port of Baltimore] but would also help to solve a very real environmental problem. Other areas of the country are competing with us for this product so time is of the essence." (Source: Farragut letter.) A Maryland environment department official said in late November that his department is working with the U.S. EPA "to ensure that the project will not generate an international incident." This statement echoed the earlier concern of a U.S. embassy official in Beijing, who noted "the current international sensitivities on the export of waste to developing countries and the potential embarrassment to the U.S. over this proposal." (Sources: letter from Richard Collins, State of Maryland Department of the Environment, to Paul Farragut, Maryland Port Administration, November 27, 1990; Lilly memo.) Further complicating this scheme are recent questions about whether the officials in China are aware of the toxic nature of the planned scheme. An agreement between Hainan Sunlitt and the Tianjan representative office of the Tibetan Bureau of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade allows the import of up to one and a half million tons of "heni" -- the Chinese word for "river silt." The Chinese word for sewage sludge is "wuni." (Source: Lilly memo.) A separate document from a district administrator of an unnamed harbor city in China states that up to 300,000 tons of "river silt" will be accepted if the central Chinese government approves of the import. In October 1990, Secretary of State Baker stated that these documents raise "the question of whether or not China understands the nature of the material and whether it has been properly represented by the exporter to the Chinese authorities." (Source: telegram from U.S. Secretary of State James Baker to U.S. Embassy in Beijing, October 1990.) Urban sewage sludge is not river silt, nor is it useful "fertilizer" when it is contaminated by household and industrial toxic wastes. In the United States, sludge from urban sewage treatment plants are chronically laced with toxic pollutants. The toxic chemicals in public sewer systems come from two major sources: industries that flush chemical wastes down the sewer and households that flush chemical-containing consumer products such as cleansers, solvents and paints down the sewer. When sewage sludge has been used in the United States as "fertilizer," the results have been disastrous. In Milwaukee, where processed sewage sludge is sold as garden fertilizer, the product has been linked to outbreaks of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), although no definitive causality has been proven. The city of Chicago had to withdraw sludge marketed as garden fertilizer in the 1970s, after heavy metals were found to be accumulating at high levels in gardens on which it had been dumped. (Sources: "Milorganite Link to ALS?," Milwaukee Sentinel, February 2, 1987, p.1; "MSD Grows a Cadmium Crop," The Neighborhood Works, Center for Neighborhood Technology, July 27, 1979.) Despite these dangers, there are no federal U.S. restrictions on the export of sewage sludge. If any sewage sludge is shipped to Tibet, it is likely to remain there. Hainan Sunlitt Group has assured California Enterprise that "we will take the responsibility for all losses caused by our failing in finishing the Customer procedures after arrival of the goods in the China ports, and we guarantee (sic) that WE WILL NOT SHIP THE GOODS BACK TO THE U.S.A. [emphasis added]." (Source: Letter from Mr. Tao to Mr. Sun.) CENTRAL AMERICA, SOUTH AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN SPHERE ATTEMPTS EXPORT OF TOXIC COAL ASH TO EL SALVADOR Greenpeace was recently informed by El Salvadoran environmentalists that the Houston, Texas-based company Sphere International has proposed exporting 3-4 million tons of ash from coal combustion to El Salvador for us in the construction of low income housing. After researching the proposed waste trade scheme, Greenpeace determined that as many as three companies may be involved in the deal. The companies are, Sphere International, INTMAR -- which is the Houston office of the Mexican business enterprise Plus Group and Ardecon Inc. The proposal entails shipping 3 million tons of coal combustion fly ash over a two year period for a sea reclamation project to expand the coastal city of La Union in El Salvador. A 4 to 6 meter retaining wall would be built along the shore to mark off the coastal area where the ash would be dumped. In the proposal, the president of Sphere, Lawrence Tackett, states that the ash would come from a number of utility companies in the U.S. One of the listed companies, Houston Power and Light, said that although an ash composite sheet from their broker, JTM Industries, was listed in the pages of the proposal, neither they nor their ash broker knew about the planned shipment. A second company implicated in the proposal was Baltimore Lighting, a small company which generates very little waste. Virginia Power Company said that they were also approached about the project in October but they rejected the proposal due to the expenses involved. Virginia Power also said that they were quite sure that last November, when they turned the project down, the proposed retaining wall had already been built in El Salvador. The proposal mentions nothing about a monetary payment to El Salvador for taking the toxic waste. Rather, the companies proposing the scheme say that they are donating the ash to El Salvador as a show of support for the country's economic growth. Tackett states in the proposal that the companies will sub- contract for the construction of low-income housing, a heliport, a military play ground, physical installations for an out-patient health unit, an athletic field, a school of 20 classrooms and a city park. (Source: Sphere International Proposal entitled "The Urban Development Complex And Expansion of the Naval Base in the City of La Union Republic of El Salvador.") Contact: Lawrence Tackett Sphere International P.O. Box 821454 Houston, Texas, USA 77282-1454 IBDC PROPOSES BURNING UP GARBAGE IN JAMAICA Two companies, Montenay Power Corporation and Caribbean Energy Resources, Inc. (CERI) are currently offering Jamaica a proposal to construct a large scale municipal waste incinerator. The companies' plan, titled "Jamaica Resource Recovery and Power Project," (the Plan) proposes to "erect and operate a resource recovery and power generation complex in Jamaica...to burn a prepared paper-based fuel. (Source: "Jamaica Resource Recovery and Power Project," (Plan), November 1990.) The title of the Plan is misleading. The facility is, in fact, a municipal waste incinerator which will burn waste and create some energy as a byproduct. Over eighty percent of the waste to be burned would be imported from the United States. Montenay and CERI approached the Jamaican government with the plan in December 1990. The government stated that they would not participate and suggested they find a private business to work with. (Source: The Sunday Gleaner, Kingston, December 16, 1990.) In February 1991, a Jamaican embassy official in Washington, D.C. told Greenpeace that Jamaica would not allow U.S. wastes to be imported. The proposed facility would import approximately 3,600 tons of garbage daily from the U.S. This would be supplemented by approximately 550 tons per day of waste from the Kingston area. Approximately 2,500 tons per day of the combined waste would be burned in the proposed incinerator and the remainder would be either landfilled or separated and sold as scrap materials in the U.S. According to the Plan, U.S. waste imports will begin 27-29 months before the incinerator begins operations. The imported waste will be stockpiled at the project site. Montenay Power Corporation operates a number of incinerators in North America which have been plagued with technical problems and environmental violations. CERI is an upstart company based in Washington, D.C. Because the government of Jamaica rejected participating in the project, the two companies are presently searching for a private sector Jamaican company to accept their plan. One Jamaican company, Industrial Commercial Developments Ltd. (ICD) was approached by Montenay and CERI. ICD is a private sector Jamaican company with no previous experience in the construction or operation of municipal waste incinerators. On March 5 they announced that they would not participate in the project. According to ICD spokesperson, Errol Powell, "Unless ICD can have an absolute guarantee that there will be no environmental hazards, we would not participate in it." (Source: Daily Gleaner, January 13, 1991.) It is unlikely that this project will ever be accepted in Jamaica. Jamaica has a strong record against the international trade in wastes, and has stated on numerous occasions that it will not accept waste imports. If the proposal is eventually accepted by a private Jamaican company, it would still be in direct violation of the Lome IV Treaty on trade and aid relations between the European Community and the 68 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. Under the Lome Convention the ACP countries agreed to ban all waste imports from all countries. PHILADELPHIA AND U.S. EPA GET UNEXPECTED ASH PACKETS In December, the Mayor of Philadelphia, Wilson Goode, and the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), William Reilly, received letters filled with toxic incinerator ash. The pouches of ash came from Haiti where 3,000 tons of ash were dumped three years ago. The ash originally came from Philadelphia and was sent to Haiti on the famous waste trading vessel, The Khian Sea. The ash was presented to Haiti as "fertilizer." After years of pleading with the City of Philadelphia and the U.S. Government to take back their toxic waste, Haitian environmentalists decided to take matters into their own hands and off their beach. Two Haitian environmental groups, Cibao Club and Les Amis de la Nature, organized a mass mailing to the U.S. in an effort to rid their shores of the Philadelphia ash. They sent 250 envelopes to Goode and another 250 to Reilly. The envelopes carried a concise message, "Contains Philadelphia Waste. Return to sender. Delivered three years ago, mislabeled as fertilizer." The EPA maintains that the situation is now Haiti's responsibility. If Haiti wants the ash removed, it will have to make a formal request to the U.S. (Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 20, 1990.) ALMANY PROPOSES ASH SHIPMENTS TO PANAMA In August, Almany Enterprises, a company with headquarters in Miami, Florida, proposed shipping 30 million tons of incinerator ash from various U.S. cities to Panama over the next four years. Almany would pay the government approximately US$6.50 per ton of toxic waste received in Panama. The ash is believed to be highly contaminated with cadmium, copper lead and zinc. Almany proposes to landfill the ash in marshlands near the free zone of Colon. The offer is under consideration by the government of Panama. (Source: Greenpeace Latin America.) BIOGAS ENERGY SYSTEMS CORPORATION DEVELOPING MASSIVE WASTE EXPORT SCHEME IN LATIN AMERICAN REGION Mr. Nicholas Sands of the Biogas Energy Systems has been working on a so-called "billion dollar deal" that would bring unspecified quantities of waste from the U.S. to an as yet undetermined country in either the Caribbean or South America. Possible target countries include Venezuela and the Dominican Republic. Sands has not determined exactly how the waste will be disposed of but he has stated that the overall project would include a variety of benefits including low cost housing and possible medical facilities. Contact: Nicholas Sands Biogas Energy Systems Corporation 5540 Scarington Court West Orlando, Florida, USA 32821 Telephone (407) 239-8880 Other Schemes, In Brief... EQUATORIAL GUINEA HALTS PROPOSED RADIOACTIVE WASTE SHIPMENT Government officials in Equatorial Guinea rejected a 1990 proposal to ship waste from the United States to the small West African country. A Panama-registered company, Development Corporation SA proposed to ship toxic wastes that, according to Malabo state reports, included radioactive material, radon and dioxin. The government was offered US$ 260 million and significant investment in the tourism housing and transport sectors. (Source: West Africa, 11-17 June, 1990 pg. 990.) UPDATE ON WASTE BARRELS IN THE BLACK SEA An investigation carried out by Robin des Bois, an environmental activist group in France and West Germany, revealed that a minimum of 7,000 tons of carcinogenic and flammable paints were disposed of in the Black Sea by a Panamanian ship during the summer of 1988. Since then, about 1,000 barrels have washed ashore, causing enormous problems for the wildlife in the area. Several thousand more barrels are believed to be floating in the sea off the coast of Ince Burun. (Source: Press Release by Robin des Bois, March 29, 1990.) OBITUARY Sunday Nana, the owner of the land in southern Nigeria where the Italian Chemical Company Jelly Wax dumped 4,000 tons of toxic and radioactive waste, died on March 3, 1990. Nana's death was reportedly unrelated to the toxic dumping. The official news agency of Nigeria reported that Nana had developed tuberculosis before the waste had been dumped on his land. [Greenbase Inventory October 27, 1991 ] =======[#]======= [] TL: GREENPEACE WASTE TRADE UPDATE VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 (GP) SO: Greenpeace International DT: MARCH 22, 1991 Keywords: toxics hazardous waste trade greenpeace digests gp greenpeace / [part 7 of 7] One Final Note Nearly a year has passed since we last produced the Waste Trade Update, but the lack of a newsletter should not be mistaken for a lack of waste trade news. Our publication efforts have centered on the fifth edition of The International Trade in Wastes: A Greenpeace Inventory, which we released in mid-February (see article below). The Waste Trade Update is intended as a companion newsletter to the Inventory. Every few months, beginning with this issue, we will update our readers on the latest waste trade trends, schemes and policies. This issue describes just a portion of the schemes that we have encountered over the past year, none of which were included in the Inventory due to our publication schedule. Another Waste Trade Update will be produced soon, covering more major schemes and policies; by then, hopefully, the reader will have a complete, up-to-date, overview of the international waste trade. *** UPCOMING WASTE TRADE NEWS *** *Global Telesis Back in Papua New Guinea *Waste Trader Ambrosini Goes on Trial *EC Drafts New Waste Trade Loopholes *Mercury Wastes Dumped in Spain *Waste Traders Target Guinea, China, Dominican Republic, Soviet Union and Many Other Countries *Waste Trader Allegedly Attempts to Blow Up Chemical Tanks in the U.S. NEW RESOURCES ON INTERNATIONAL WASTE TRADE LITERATURE: The International Trade in Wastes: A Greenpeace Inventory (Fifth Edition, 1990) - See above article. Available in English only. Spanish, French and German versions will be available soon. Available from: Greenpeace Waste Trade Project, 1436 U St., N.W., Washington, DC 20009. US$20.00. Never Registered Pesticides: Rejected Toxics Join the 'Circle of Poison' - This Greenpeace report presents four case studies of pesticides manufactured by DowElanco, Mobay Corporation and Monsanto Agricultural Company. Every year, about 100-150 million pounds of pesticides that cannot be used in the United States are exported for use overseas. Pesticides researched in this report include butachlor, haloxyfop nuarimol and prothiophos. This report points out problems that existing loopholes in U.S. policy pose to people and the environment in the U.S. and abroad. Available from: Pesticides Campaign, Greenpeace, 1436 U St., N.W., Washington, DC 20009. US$10.00. Poland - The Waste Invasion - This Greenpeace report documents over 60 different attempts to dump waste in Poland. A companion video is described below. Available from Greenpeace Waste Trade Project, Washington, DC. US$5.00. Pollution for the Marshall Islands Equals Profits for the U.S. - This Greenpeace report was released in June 1990. It serves as a follow-up report to the document released in June 1989 entitled "Waste Traders Target the Marshall Islands." The new report reveals an extensive criminal resume of Jim Thompson, a waste trader responsible for a scheme to export over 34 billion tons of municipal waste and used tires from the U.S. to the Marshall Islands. The scientific opinions of several marine biologists opposing the scheme are also presented. Available from Greenpeace Waste Trade Project, Washington, DC. US$5.00. Import/Export of Irradiated Fuel and Radioactive Waste to and from the United Kingdom, 365 pp., by John Large of Large and Associates, Consulting Engineers, published by Greenpeace UK, 30 Islington Green, London N1 8XE, Executive Summary, 55 pp, also available. Global Dumping Ground - The Center for Investigative Reporting researched and wrote this book which illustrates both legal and illegal trade in wastes of many kinds. The report reveals how toxic exports have become an enormous business, spurred by closing dump sites and skyrocketing disposal costs in the U.S. The book is available from Seven Locks Press, PO Box 27, Cabin John, Maryland, 20818, USA (phone - 301-320-2130). FILMS: How Green is the Valley? - Thor Chemicals, a British owned company, receives hazardous waste from the United States and the U.K. at its mercury reprocessing plant in the Natal Province, South Africa. Greenpeace visited the site and took sediment samples which indicated dangerous levels of mercury in the water on which local villagers rely. Greenpeace footage includes visuals of villagers drawing water from the river, Greenpeace researchers taking sediment samples, interviews with South African environmentalists, physicians and environmental officials. Also, dramatic footage of protests at the Thor plant and American Cyanamid in New Jersey which exports waste to Thor in South Africa. See related story. Video available from Greenpeace. US$15.00. Poland - The Waste Invasion - Poland has been the target of at least 63 waste trade schemes in the last two years. Since 1989, waste traders have attempted to export over 22 million tons of waste to the East European country. Greenpeace conducted research over the past year to determine the magnitude of waste trade in Poland and produced this video which includes footage of waste disposal sites, interviews with Western waste exporters, discussions with Polish officials and interviews with local activists who stormed and demolished a local incinerator that was scheduled to destroy imported waste. See related story. Video available from Greenpeace. US$15.00. Global Dumping Ground - This U.S. public television special documents the international trade in wastes. Aired on October 2, 1990, "Global Dumping Ground" illustrates both legal and illegal trade in wastes of many kinds. The report reveals how toxic exports have become an enormous business, spurred by closing dump sites and skyrocketing disposal costs in the U.S. Available from CIR Video Sales, 530 Howard Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105. US$29.95 plus US$3.00 shipping & handling. *** SUBSCRIBE NOW TO THE GREENPEACE WASTE TRADE UPDATE *** The Greenpeace Waste Trade Update is published periodically in three languages; English, French and Spanish. The annual sub- scription rate is US$ 10.00. Please send a check or money order made payable to the "Greenpeace Waste Trade Project" to Green- peace Waste Trade Project, 1436 U Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20009. NAME ORGANIZATION ADDRESS CITY STATE/PROVINCE POSTAL CODE COUNTRY TELEPHONE TELEFAX TELEX REASON FOR INTEREST LANGUAGE *** OTHER GREENPEACE WASTE TRADE RESOURCES DESIRED *** NAME OF PUBLICATION OR VIDEO COST END [Greenbase Inventory October 27, 1991 ] =======[#]=======