Governments recommend
new 10-year vision for managing transboundary
movements of hazardous wastes
Geneva, 14 May 2010 - Greater emphasis on
highlighting the links between waste management,
the achievement of the Millennium Development
Goals and human health and livelihoods underpins
a new 10-year vision for the Basel Convention
recommended by governments today.
Three hundred delegates
from 106 countries welcomed the Convention's
Strategic Framework 2012-2021 on the final
day of a meeting in Geneva at which a range
of pressing issues on the control of transboundary
movements of hazardous wastes and their
disposal have been considered.
Other key outcomes of
the five-day meeting include moves to ensure
strong controls on the rapidly growing ship
dismantling industry, progress developing
global recycling guidelines for used computers
and support for furthering the objectives
of the Ban Amendment to the Convention which
prohibits the export of hazardous waste
from developed countries to developing countries.
The Executive Secretary
of the Basel Convention, Katharina Kummer
Peiry, said the forum's positive results
come at a time of renewed interest in the
management of transboundary movements and
disposal of hazardous wastes.
"The international
community is signaling its support for increased
efforts to promote the environmentally sound
management of waste during a time of transition
with new waste streams, new technological
developments and ways in which waste moves
around the world," Ms. Kummer Peiry
said.
"Governments have
taken a visionary approach to determining
the future direction of the Convention and
they're calling for it to play a decisive
role globally, regionally and nationally
in strengthening the links to the achievement
of the Millennium Development Goals to benefit
human health and livelihoods.
"This also follows
the agreement by governments in Bali, Indonesia,
in February to have more cooperative action
by the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions
as a first step to boosting their delivery
within countries," she added.
The Open-ended Working
Group (OEWG) to the Basel Convention - its
main subsidiary body - convened its seventh
session at the Geneva International Conference
Centre this week (from 10 to 14 May 2010).
The wide-ranging recommendations
from the meeting will be put to the Basel
Convention's next Conference of the Parties
(COP 10) to be held in Cartagena, Colombia,
from 17-21 October 2011.
The main outcomes include:
Endorsement by Parties
to the Basel Convention of:
- Revised technical guidelines for the environmentally
sound management of used tyres
- Technical guidelines
on the environmentally sound management
of mercury wastes, and
- Draft technical guidelines
on the co-processing of hazardous waste
in cement kilns;
In relation to the environmentally
sound dismantling of ships, there was agreement
on criteria for assessing whether the International
Maritime Organisation's (IMO) International
Convention adopted in Hong Kong in 2009
for the safe and environmentally-sound recycling
of ships establishes an equivalent level
of control and enforcement as that of the
Basel Convention;
Positive reaction to
the Indonesian-Swiss country-led initiative
to improve the effectiveness of the Basel
Convention by furthering the objectives
of the Ban Amendment, namely analyzing why
transboundary movements of hazardous wastes
and other wastes occur, especially to developing
countries and countries with economies in
transition, when environmentally sound management
cannot be ensured;
A review of the operation
of the Basel Convention Regional Centres
and preparation of a workplan for strengthening
their operations at the regional and national
level;
Measures to combat illegal
trafficking in hazardous wastes and strengthen
enforcement by countries of the Convention's
provisions, which included giving all delegates
an instruction manual on national reporting
prepared by the Secretariat;
A progress report on
PACE - a public-private partnership under
the umbrella of the Basel Convention - included
advances in developing global refurbishment
and recycling guidelines for used end-of-life
computing equipment and confirmation of
nine countries where e-waste surveys would
be conducted: Burkina Faso, Jordan, Samoa,
El Salvador, Serbia, Cote d'Ivoire, Sri
Lanka, Cambodia and Brazil.
The Basel Convention
on the Control of Transboundary Movements
of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal is
the most comprehensive global environmental
agreement on hazardous and other wastes.
Notes to Editors
Environmentally Sound
Dismantling of Ships
Ship dismantling - or
ship recycling - is the process by which
end-of-life ships are converted into steel
and other recyclable items, and the remainder
is then disposed of. These operations are
performed mainly in South Asia, with India,
Bangladesh and Pakistan currently occuping
70-80% of the market. China and Turkey occupy
much of the remainder.
The industry offers
a valuable end-of-life solution to old ships
although there are concerns about the environmental,
health and safety standards employed, especially
in South Asia, as the industry has historically
gravitated towards low labour cost countries
with weak regulations on occupational health
and safety and the environment.
The Basel Convention
applies to ships bound for dismantling.
However, given the nature of international
shipping, it can be difficult to enforce.
Negotiations were under way in the International
Maritime Organization (IMO) for a legally
binding instrument on ship recycling which
resulted in the adoption of the Hong Kong
International Convention for the Safe and
Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships
in May 2009.
The Basel Convention
Parties have requested the IMO to ensure
that the Hong-Kong Convention establishes
an equivalent level of control as that established
under the Basel Convention.
With the agreement today
on the criteria, a preliminary assessment
will now be conducted and presented at COP
10, commencing a process that may lead to
the exclusion from the Basel Convention
of those ships which would be covered by
the Hong Kong Convention (when it enters
into force).
Technical guidelines
on mercury waste
The further development
of technical guidelines for the environmentally
sound management of mercury wastes is part
of the work programme of the Open-ended
Working Group for 2009-2011. The Government
of Japan has taken the lead in the development
of these guidelines and a draft was considered
at the meeting in Geneva this week.
This work feeds into
the negotiations on a legally binding instrument
on mercury wastes in terms of the environmentally
sound management of mercury before the proposed
Mercury Convention comes into force. It
means that countries facing problems in
managing mercury and its wastes do not have
to wait until the negotiations are completed.
The UN Environment Programme
is staging the first negotiating session
on a legally-binding agreement on mercury
in Stockholm, Sweden, from 7-11 June 2010.
