NEWS |
UNEP News ReleaseHAZARDOUS WASTES EXPERTS DRAFT GUIDELINES ON DISMANTLING SHIPS AND PREVENTING ILLEGAL TRAFFICUNEP News Releas Issued in Geneva on 9 October 2000 - Hazardous wastes experts draft guidelines on dismantling ships and preventing illegal traffic Basel Convention's technical and legal working groups meet in Geneva Nairobi, 10 October 2000 - International experts on the technical and legal aspects of hazardous wastes are meeting here this week to promote further progress under the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. "Our industrial economy continues to produce hazardous wastes in enormous quantities," said Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, which provides the Convention's secretariat. "Until we make a full transition to clean production methods, the Basel Convention will remain a vital tool for ensuring the safe management and disposal of these wastes." The 17th Session of the Technical Working Group, which meets from 9 - 11 October, will start drafting new guidelines for the environmentally safe dismantling of ships. Ships are built using a variety of toxic materials, and the decommissioning of a large vessel can involve the removal of many tonnes of hazardous wastes. The guidelines will be developed in cooperation with the International Maritime Organization, the International Chamber of Shipping, and the International Labour Organization (which is concerned with issues of occupational health). The experts will also continue their work on technical guidelines for the environmentally sound management of wastes. These guidelines are essential tools for enabling governments to meet their obligations under the Basel Convention. The meeting may finalize the guidelines on biomedical and healthcare wastes and is expected to make good progress on plastic wastes. Other work will include reviewing drafts of technical guidelines on waste lead acid batteries and on the recycling and reclamation of metals and metal compounds; considering applications for revising the Basel lists of hazardous (Annex VIII) and non-hazardous wastes Annex IX), thus helping to harmonize these lists with other international lists; and advancing scientific assessment work on classifying the eco-toxicity and infectious characteristics of various wastes. The 17th Session of the Legal Working Group will take place from 12 -13 October. The Group will try to finalize guidelines for governments on preventing and monitoring illegal traffic. Illegal traffickers often deliberately mix hazardous wastes with non-hazardous wastes, engage in money laundering activities or illegal arms trading, or seek ports where they can discretely dump their cargo after their ship has been unable to find a legal location. The legal experts will also seek to make progress on establishing a mechanism for monitoring governments' implementation of, and compliance with, the Convention. The mechanism will need to be entrusted to either a new or existing body. The Basel Convention was adopted in March 1989 after a series of notorious "toxic cargoes" from industrialized countries drew public attention to the dumping of hazardous wastes in developing and East European countries. It is estimated that the worldwide production of hazardous wastes exceeds 100 million tonnes. The Convention entered into force in May 1992 and now has 136 Parties. Note to journalists: For more information, contact Michael Williams at +41-22-917-8242 or michael.williams@unep.ch Official documents and other information is available at www.basel.int. or Tore J. Brevik, UNEP Spokesman/Director of Communications and Public Information, P.O. Box 30552, Nairobi; tel.: (254-2) 62-3292; fax: 623692; email cpiinfo@unep.org UNEP News Release 00/105 |