Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali | Wed, 06/25/2008 10:32 AM
The Ninth Meeting of the Conference of Parties to the Basel Convention here on Tuesday is deadlocked over an amendment to ban traffic in hazardous waste.
Japan and Canada oppose the amendment, which would require all countries to stop transporting hazardous waste in order to protect the environment and public health.
Instead, Japan submitted to the conference the 3R concept (reuse, recycle and reduce) as an environmentally sound basis for global waste management.
"Seeing the tough resistance (to the amendment), including from developing countries, the Bali meeting will not aim to push the ban," secretary of the Indonesia delegation, Emma Rachmawaty, said.
Tuesday's meeting also did not reach agreement on article 17 of the Basel Convention, that the ban could take effect if three quarters of convention members ratify it.
The convention has 170 member countries but only 63, or one-third, have ratified the ban, including Indonesia.
Emma said the Kobe 3R action plan could undermine the main thrust of the ban amendment, allowing transportation of recyclable materials and waste.
"The ban amendment forbids traffic of toxic waste to any country for any purposes, including for recycling," she said.
The conference plans to discuss the Kobe 3R action plan on Thursday. The plan was adopted by environment ministers from the group of eight (G8) rich nations -- Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States -- in their meeting last month in Japan. The U.S. is the only non-member of the convention.
"The Kobe initiative is competitive with and in important ways contrary to the primary objectives of the Basel Convention," Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network said.
"Japan must call a halt to its waste colonialism policies. They should ratify the Basel ban amendment and adopt a zero-waste self-sufficiency policy for hazardous waste management," he said.
Activists from environmental management agency Balifokus Yuyuin Yunia Ismawa urged all participating countries to carefully study the 3R proposal amid fears by environmentalists that it could block the ban amendment.
Emma said the main difficulty in pushing the ban amendment was that many African countries have yet to ratify it. So far, only Nigeria has done so.
Japanese businessman Koichi Fuchita acknowledged that Japan was facing limited land to process its toxic waste.
"I agree with the ban amendment but business-wise it is hard for Japan to approve it," he said.
The UN executive secretary Katharina Kummer Peiry declined to comment on the Japanese proposal, saying she had not yet read it.
She said the 3R concept was one of the main pillars of the convention long before this Japanese initiative.
