EU: New EU laws on waste shipments

The EU has introduced new measures regarding shipments of waste in an attempt to halt the export of toxic wastes to developing countries.

The new norms, approved by EU governments and the EU parliament last year, update existing regulations for international waste trade agreed upon in 1993 and enforce tighter controls. Governments will now be bound by the obligation to carry out inspections and will also have the right to open containers to check their contents.

EU Environment commissioner Stavros Dimas said that ?we must have strong and efficient measures at EU level to prevent illegal shipments of waste?.

Illegal waste exports have continued since 1993, presenting a major challenge to law enforcement agencies. Immediate international legal action has been deemed necessary, not only to prevent accidents such as those that occurred in Turkey in 2004 (where a Spanish ship sunk releasing tonnes of toxic waste into the Mediterranean) and in Abiyan on the Ivory Coast in 2006 (where 16 people died and thousands suffered health problems after waste was unloaded from a ship chartered by a Dutch company). But also because there is no guarantee that the shipments of waste that are taken for treatment outside the EU will be treated in respect of the Environment.

An EU Spokeswoman, Barbara Helfferich highlights that shipments of worn out vehicles and ?e-waste? (old electrical equipment) to countries eager to ?recycle? the metal pose environmental threats. Metals like copper and platinum, but also lead from lead solder, are extracted to be melted down and sold, while toxic materials are often discarded along the way with little regard for the local environment.

A recent report published in the Wall Street Journal also reveals that lead exported to China makes a round trip journey back into the US in the form of jewellery and key chains sold in toy stores. Experiments on these manufacturing products prove the high percentage of lead in the metals used to make them, but also the origin of the lead, as there were traces of other metals used in electronic components. ?Talk about globalisation? says Ted Smith, founder of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, ?if you drew a map of this, the arrows would go in lots of different directions?.

More info:

• www.ban.org