Saying 'no’ to waste
p. 47 · Read in the full issue
IN 1988, Papua New Guinea’s Oro provincial government was ap proached by an American firm seek ing to build a USS3B million disposal facility in the province. Under the plan, 600,000 metric tonnes of toxic wastes would be shipped from the US West Coast each month to be burned at the proposed incinerator.
In return, the Oro provincial govern ment would receive US$45 per metric tonne and the national government in Port Moresby would get USsls for allowing the “import”. That worked out to be US$3.6 million in additional revenue each month to the coffers of both governments a very tempting prop osition indeed. Although the proposal received backing from the provincial government, pressure from community leaders and environmentalists forced the deal to be scrapped. In the same year, the
same firm approached the Solomon Islands government with a proposal “to import US hazardous wastes for the purpose of incineration”. Again the overture was turned down.
Foreign companies, usually from the industrialised countries, involved in the international wastes trade are under intense pressure on the home turf to go elsewhere, especially to developing countries where there is either no or little safeguard by way of domestic legislation or international convention to protect their environment. International wastes trade is a multi-billion dollar business. According to some estimates, industrialised countries attempted to ship more than 163 million tonnes of wastes to developing countries between 1986 and 1990. Of this amount, at least 10 million tonnes ended up in developing countries under the guise of materials for recycling. At a time when sources of aid are drying up, promised revenue from international trade in wastes can be irresistible.
In the absence of a legally-binding mechanism such as the Draft Treaty Banning Hazardous Wastes within the South Pacific, island countries in the region could become dumping grounds for hazardous and toxic wastes disguised as recycling technology. It is for this reason that Forum leaders directed that an appropriate regional convention be worked out to protect the special vulnerability of some of its members from the whims of unscrupulous dealers in international wastes trade. For it seems, the South Pacific and Asia are the only regions in the world that are without the appropriate international regimes to adequately address the international trade in wastes. For the South Pacific, that may not be for long. Forum leaders are hopeful that by 1995 the South Pacific Forum’s 15 member states Australia, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Western Samoa will have in place a regional convention banning the importation into and the dumping of hazardous and toxic wastes in the South Pacific.
Prepared by Papua New Guinea, the draft proposed treaty also aims at controlling and regulating the transboundary movement and management of hazardous and toxic wastes within the region. As you are reading this column, work is
continuing on the regime following the first of a series of meetings, held at the Forum Secretariat head quarters last March to begin nego tiating a regional convention. The two-day meeting on March 7 and 8 was attended by representatives of most Forum member countries, the Apia-based South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) as well as observers from the UNEP/ Basel Convention Secretariat, the environmental group Greenpeace and the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC). The Suva meeting was in fact in response to a directive by the Nauru Forum last August.
There, Forum leaders endorsed a proposal for a regional convention and directed the Forum Secretariat to convene a meeting by March 1994
so that technical discussions and negotiations could begin “with the aim of concluding a regional convention by the 1995 Forum meeting”. The Nauru Forum also agreed that a regional convention should be complementary to the relevant global regimes. At the Nauru Forum it was agreed that the government of PNG should formally raise the issue as an agenda item at the Fifth South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) Intergovernmental Meeting (IGM) in Apia, Western Samoa, later that year. A Technical Working Group (TWG) was established to evaluate and comment on the PNG proposal.
Essentially, the proposed treaty will ban the importation into the South Pacific region of hazardous and toxic wastes generated in countries outside the region along with marine dumping of hazardous and toxic wastes. Importation of “non environmentally friendly” or “dirty technologies” used for the treatment, recycling or disposal or marine dumping of hazardous and toxic wastes or radioactive wastes will also be banned. Hazardous and toxic products which have been banned, cancelled or refused registration by government regulatory action or voluntarily withdrawn from registration in countries of manufacture will also be banned. The proposed treaty also provides for effective management system for the control and effective and environmentally sound management of radioactive, hazardous and toxic wastes generated by member countries in the South Pacific region. As well as encouraging and promoting the clean-up of contaminated sites and badly polluted environments, the draft regime, among other things, also addresses whether or not to ban transit of such cargo through the South Pacific region or to permit transit through controlled conditions.
Provisions are also made to facilitate through appropriate mechanisms, for member countries to assess and keep under review hazardous wastes, products and technologies. This, it is hoped, will allow member countries to make informed decisions on inter-regional imports, including developing a process by which specific chemicals could be banned in the South Pacific region where necessary.
Promoting clean technologies and the capacity of the member countries to identify dirty technology are also included in the articles of the draft treaty. □