industry and environment - DTIE

Chemicals management
and cleaning of the plastic, results in direct damage
to human skin. Most of the migrant workers
who cook circuit boards suffer from headaches
and vertigo. Moreover, there are many cases of
bladder stones, chronic gastritis, and gastric and
duodenal ulcers that need further investigation
with respect to links with the health effects of e-
waste.
The discovery of widespread informal recycling
activities raises fears that China’s electronic waste
smuggling problem extends far beyond Guiyu. In
the latest findings released by BAN and Greenpeace
in April 2004, electronic waste was mixed
into steel and copper scrap being unloaded 24
hours a day in the port of Taizhou, Jiejiang
Province, from vessels arriving from Korea and
Japan. Hundreds and perhaps thousands of farmers
are now engaged in primitive and highly polluting
electronic waste recycling operations,
which involve open cooking of circuit boards,
shredding, and primitive smelting. These smallscale
operators are very easy to locate due to the
acrid smell of melting solder. Farmers claim they
will starve if they are only able to farm. They desperately
cling to additional income from circuit
board cooking, melting and chip-pulling.
Guiyu and Taizhou, the largest and most concentrated
sites of electronic waste trade in China,
are faced with environmental pollution, health
hazards, unfair trade, and other related problems.
The hidden, interrelated issues of environmental
and social justice (including labour rights, unfair
trade and corporate liability) need to be
addressed. Links between electronic waste in
Guiyu and the US and Japan involve not only a
general environmental issue, but also global trade
issues including trade ethics.
The way forward
Regarding hazardous waste, much needs to
change on the international scene. Authorities
give too little attention to reducing/eliminating
hazardous waste at source.
The Basel Ban was justified by the Parties to the
Basel Convention on the basis that transboundary
movements of hazardous waste from OECD
to non-OECD countries were unlikely to constitute
environmentally sound management of hazardous
waste, as required by the Convention. This
conclusion was based not only on the obvious lack
of technical capacity in developing countries, but
also (more importantly) on the fact that exporting
pollution to avoid higher costs always works
against the primary goals of the Basel Convention.
These goals are:
1. minimization of hazardous waste generation;
2. national self-sufficiency in hazardous waste
management;
3. minimization of transboundary movements of
hazardous waste.
Although these primary goals were supported
and furthered by the hazardous waste trade ban
(Basil Ban) and the 1993 global ban on ocean
Interview with a worker in a
shipbreaking yard,Bangladesh
As an agrarian society, Bangladesh is not used
to hazardous work like the breaking of ships.
Our country and the people are not ready to
deal with the hazards. The only work hazard
our country has always had is that you might
cut your finger if you were digging the field.
Workers at the shipbreaking yards think it is
common that if you cut a ship it might blast
and you die. Sometimes now we observe that
if a ship is gas free, it is safer to cut the ship.
However, it regularly happens that blasts take
place and that bodies are thrown from the
ships and people lose their legs or hands. We
do not know how many people die from
blasts in the shipbreaking yards. It is heard
that almost every day a labourer dies. It is natural;
it belongs to the job. It is not new that a
labourer dies. The workers have adapted it as
their normal lifestyle.
Dismantling imported e-waste
dumping of low-level radioactive waste, much
more can and needs to be done to reduce/eliminate
the generation of hazardous materials and
products. Clear targets and timetables, and producer
responsibility, are essential.
Far more resources and efforts will be required.
However, hazardous waste recycling is part of the
problem when substitute materials or technologies
exist that could avoid hazardous waste generation
in the first place. Hazardous waste recycling
can indeed be a serious problem, in that it creates/
expands market demand for continuing hazardous
waste generation.
The United States, the world’s largest hazardous
waste generator, could reduce its hazardous
waste generation by over 41% over less
than five years through substitution without negative
macro-economic implications. 9 Yet if there
is no “driving force” such as mandatory substitution,
hazardous waste generation will continue to
increase over time.
The solution to traditional problems of hazardous
waste is clear and available, but politics
and short-term special industry interests obstruct
countries’ efforts. The developed countries with
the greatest capacity need to lead the way by
reducing their ever-increasing hazardous waste
generation through mandatory substitution.
This is especially necessary now if we are to
achieve sustainable development, production and
consumption patterns as new issues continue to
emerge.
Notes
1. There were 118 signatory countries. The Basel
Convention Secretariat site is www.basel.int.
2. Most OECD members are also EU Member
States and are therefore subject to EU regulations.
For OECD activities in the area of hazardous
waste management, see www.oecd.org.
3. For the Basel Ban, see www.ban.org.
4. See www.imo.org/environment/mainframe.
asp?topic_idi818.
5. See www.basel.int/ships/index.html.
6. Greenpeace has found that most end-of-life
vessels fly “flags of convenience” provided by such
countries when they make their final voyage to
shipbreaking yards.
7. Million light displacement tonnage per year.
8. Prepared by the Basel Action Network (BAN)
and the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC),
with contributions by Toxics Link India, SCOPE
(Pakistan) and Greenpeace China, February
2002. The entire report can be downloaded at
www.svtc. org/cleancc/pubs/technotrash.pdf.
9. United States Congressional Office of Technology
Assessment (OTA), report on waste management,
1987.
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