Due to end Friday, an international conference on hazardous waste is expected to output two documents as many countries insisted on refusing to ratify the ban amendment aimed at barring the transboundary traffic of toxic trash.

The documents are a Bali declaration on waste management for human health and livelihood and the president's non-binding paper on way forward to the ban amendment.

The paper was issued by Indonesian environment minister Rachmat Witoelar in his capacity as the president of the conference of parties to the Basel Convention.

The paper will be put on the table during Rachmat's informal meeting Friday with ministers and delegation heads of the five-day conference.

The draft paper calls on all parties to expedite the ratifications of the ban amendment to help protect the environment and human health from toxic waste.

Rachmat also called on the Basel parties to create conditions, partly through country-led initiatives, conducive to the attainment of the amendment's objectives.

"The country-led initiatives might serve to gather momentum to encourage ratifications of the amendment and for its entry into force," the paper says.

"Such initiatives might address, for example, enforcement, capacity to monitor, detect and control illegal traffic, trace shipments of hazardous waste and transposition of the objectives of the ban amendment into national legislation."

The Basel Convention on the control of transboundary hazardous waste and its disposal, adopted in 1989, currently has 170 member parties. The Basel article requires three-fourths of members to ratify the convention in order to enforce the amendment.

So far, only 63 countries have ratified the ban amendment and only 15 ministers, mostly from Africa, are expected to attend a high-level meeting Friday.

Data from the United Nations show that many of the poor countries in Africa are not parties to the convention.

"Even delegations from Africa in the Bali conference are still divided on the ratification of the ban amendment," Agus Purnomo, who heads Indonesia's delegation, said Thursday.

Indonesia has ratified the ban amendment but continues to export hazardous waste, including to Thailand, as it has no solid waste management facilities.

Japan, which refused to ratify the ban amendment, said it has been collaborating with Asian countries to prevent illegal imports and exports of toxic waste in the region.

"We strongly support the Basel convention," Hideto Yoshida, director general of the waste management and recycling department at Japan's environment ministry, told the ninth meeting of the Basel convention on Thursday.

He said Japan had contributed voluntary financial assistance of about US$900,000 for an electronic waste project in the Asia-Pacific region.

"The government of Japan is making a new pledge to provide an additional $350,000 voluntary contribution to the convention this year," Yoshida said.

The draft Bali declaration is an official paper that proposes actions to meet the targets of the Basel Convention on environmentally sound solid waste facilities.

"We encourage actions by parties to promote awareness about the links between waste management, human health, livelihood and environment," the draft says.

It also encourages parties to improve waste shipments and border control to prevent the illegal movement of hazardous waste.

The paper also invites the World Health Assembly to consider a resolution related to the improvement of health through safe and environmentally sound waste management.

Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari urged the Basel countries to implement environmentally sound management of toxic waste to meet the Millennium Development Goals.

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