Bout Over Say In Toxic Waste Trade Imminent

After the Kyoto Convention on climatic change, the developed and the developing nations are in for another bout at a meeting being organised at Kuching in Malaysia next month. The meet will discuss regulation on the movement of hazardous wastes from one country to another.

The stakes are high for both the developed countries which are exporters of such substances and developing countries which are the importers.

This meet is a follow-up of the landmark Basel Convention of 1989 which framed the norms on the trans-boundry movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal. It was attended by 126 countries and came into force in 1992.

1992. India, a signatory, ratified the pact in the same year.

The meet in Malaysia is scheduled to be held from February 23 to 27. The meet will be attended by the representatives of the developed and developing countries and is likely to turn into a cockpit of conflicting interests with the developed countries wanting to sell off disposable wastes to the developing countries and the latter resisting it with a lot of ifs and buts.

India and other developing countries are of the view that the importing countries should have the right to decide about the processing and disposal of the wastes to make them environment friendly.

A recent roundtable organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry on the implication of the Basel Convention resolved that subscribing to the dictates of the OECD countries was ( is) recognised as an infringement of Indias sovereignty.

The roundtable was of the view that the wastes that have been classified as hazardous should be kept outside the purview of the convention and industry should get representation in the Indian delegation participating in the forthcoming meet.

It was further emphasised that all deliberations of the Basel Convention as also of the follow-up meets should be made more transparent and the communication system should be improved so as to share the deliberations with industry, the non-government organisations ( NGOs), concerned government officials and all others concerned in the matter.

It was also recognised at the roundtable meet that there is a strong need to strengthen the Indian recycling industry to raise their environmental performance level and a strong and effective institutional mechanism should be built up to monitor the movement of the hazardous wastes.