Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ

Toxic waste will no longer be allowed free passage across Europe’s borders.
Rules approved by environment ministers last month will soon allow European
Community countries to refuse waste from their neighbours. But they will
still be free to dump toxic waste in Eastern Europe and much of the Third
World.

According to Greenpeace, between November and February 600 tonnes of
pesticides were shipped to Albania by Schmidt-Cretan, a joint venture between
a waste contractor in Hanover and an Albanian toy company. The shipments,
which were labelled ‘humanitarian aid for use in agriculture’, contained
pesticides made in the former East Germany that are now either banned or
past their sell-by date.

The German environment ministry says that the pesticides included formulations
containing lindane and other organo-chlorines, and herbicides with high
concentrations of dioxins. They would have cost at least DM8000 (about
£3300) a tonne to dispose of in Germany.

Lirim Selfo, head of Albania’s National Committee for the Protection
of the Environment, told Greenpeace that the shipment was approved by the
Albanian agriculture ministry. But last March, the Albanian state firm Agroimport,
asked Schmidt-Cretan to stop the shipments because the barrels that had
arrived were old and leaking. A subsequent rail shipment then arrived at
the border crossing of Bajza. Albania tried to send it back, says Greenpeace,
but the waste was simply repackaged and returned. It is still at Bajza.

The rest of the waste is still sitting at the Albanian port of Durres,
and a military camp at Milot. Local people are reported to be stealing the
drums, emptying them, and using them to store water and food.

Similar shipments would not be prevented by the new rules. But the rules
do change Community policy on internal trade, placing waste under regulations
governing the environment, rather than those of free trade. When they come
into force in just over a year, Community countries will be able to refuse
waste. This would be illegal under free trade regulations.

The ministers also banned any waste shipments to the 67 developing countries
in Africa, the Caribbean and in the Pacific which receive aid under the
Community’s Lome agreement. But they did little to control shipments to
other developing countries and Eastern Europe. Wastes that are on a ‘green
list’ of substances considered less toxic can be shipped to these countries.
A single letter of approval from the importer’s government will cover an
indefinite number of shipments of all such waste. The green list includes
such potentially toxic substances as heavy metals.

By contrast, the international Basel Convention on Hazardous Waste,
which came into force in April, has no green list and requires importing
governments to approve every shipment.

The Community will also allow any type of waste to be shipped to Third
World countries for recycling or recovery. Under these rules the shipment
to Albania would be legal because the pesticide was to have been used. Jim
Puckett of Greenpeace sees this rule being used as a loophole. ‘All you
need is for the importer to claim the waste will be recycled. That doesn’t
mean it will be.’

Last week, waste traders in Spain were arrested for importing German
plastic scrap ‘for recycling’, then dumping it illegally. Even if waste
is recycled, Puckett says he has ‘never seen a recovery operation in a developing
country which did not harm people and the environment’.