Biden Administration Called Upon to Join the Basel Convention and Promote Global Environmental Justice for Waste
/US Exports of Plastic and Hazardous Waste to Poorer Countries Called Out of Control
Posted on May 13, 2021, Source: BAN Press Release.
May 13, 2021. Seattle, WA. Today, over 150 environmental and social justice organizations worldwide have called upon the Biden Administration to fully ratify the 1989 Basel Convention on global waste management as a matter of urgency in alignment with the Administration's new emphasis on environmental justice. In a letter to the President, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, and Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality Brenda Mallory, the groups called out the glaring contradiction between the Administration’s strong stated emphasis on environmental justice domestically and the poor record of the United States on those issues internationally.
“The US is the only developed country in the world that fails to control global dumping of its toxic and nuisance waste," said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network. "Every day we send hundreds of container loads of dirty and mixed plastics, and hazardous electronic wastes to developing countries -- all in violation of international law and the principles of environmental justice."
Today, BAN published new monthly data showing that the March exports of US plastic wastes to non-OECD countries surged to 27,600 metric tonnes per month, with much of the increase going to India. Wastes exported to developing countries are often poorly or incompletely recycled, with much of the plastic scrap dumped and burned on open land. Such burning and the failure to properly recycle such wastes also exacerbates the current climate crisis, that the Biden Administration has placed as another environmental priority.
Environmental justice policies aim to ensure that poorer or disenfranchised communities do not bear a disproportionate cost of environmental impacts and harm, but rather that all peoples are equally provided with opportunities to live in a pollution-free environment. In existence for 32 years, the Basel Convention is an instrument to achieve this goal. It is designed to prevent developing countries from being harmed by traders wishing to export plastic and hazardous wastes and avoid the true costs of responsible and complete disposal and recycling at home.
The United States, one of the world's most wasteful countries per capita, remains one of but eight countries in the world that has not ratified the 188-member accord. Meanwhile, every day US actors continue to export unwanted, toxic, and highly polluting wastes with impunity to developing countries, ill-equipped to deal with them.
"If the Biden Administration is serious about solving the pollution and climate crises, and fighting for environmental justice for frontline communities wherever they may be, they will not delay another minute in pushing for ratification of the Basel Convention this year," said Greenpeace USA Oceans Campaign Director John Hocevar.
In today's letter, the Biden Administration is asked to reverse years of US waste opportunism and align itself with the European Union and the other developed countries that have ratified the Basel Convention and have agreed to prohibit all hazardous waste exports to developing countries. Full ratification of the Basel Convention by the US would go a long way towards preventing marine and terrestrial pollution from plastic wastes, as well as global pollution from the informal smelting of plastics and electronic waste, conducted at a massive scale in many parts of the world.
For more information contact:
Jim Puckett, Executive Director, Basel Action Network
email: jpuckett@ban.org, phone: 206-354-0391
For a copy of the letter click here.
For the latest waste trade data click here.
Annex:
The Basel Convention: Just the Facts
• The Basel Convention is the world's only international treaty on waste and waste trade.
• It was originally called for by developing countries to ban the export of hazardous and other wastes to them from developed countries.
• It was adopted and signed in 1989 but failed to include a full ban due to US objections to such a provision.
• Nevertheless, in 1995 a ban was adopted as a proposed Amendment due to unrelenting support from developing countries and the European Union, against the wishes of the US.
• Currently, the Basel Convention has 188 Parties, with only eight UN countries failing to have ratified it: East Timor, Grenada, Haiti, San Marino, South Sudan, Fiji, Solomon Islands and the US.
• The US is the only developed (OECD member) country that has failed to ratify the Convention.
• Of the original signatories at its adoption in 1989, only Haiti and the US have failed to fulfill their registered intent to ratify.
• The Basel Ban Amendment is now part and parcel of the Convention as new Article 4a and Annex VII.
• This Ban Amendment finally entered into force in December 2019. Currently, 100 countries have ratified the Ban Amendment.
• Legal experts agree that when/if the US ratifies the Convention, they will have to accept Article 4a and the new Annex, as the Convention allows no partial ratifications or reservations.
• Despite this, the Biden Administration's State Department has stated they are exploring options to ratify the Convention without the Ban Amendment.
• Meanwhile, all manner of hazardous electronic waste and plastic waste can be freely traded from the US, even as it becomes criminal trafficking in waste once it is on its way to developing countries.
• The Biden Administration claims to make Environmental Justice a central theme of its environmental policy.
• Failure to ratify the Basel Convention in its entirety, including all of its articles and annexes, is a US affront to global environmental justice.
The Ask
The undersigned organizations and prominent environmental justice advocates call upon the Biden Administration to:
1. Cease US antagonism to the Basel Convention and the Basel Ban Amendment and take the necessary steps to facilitate and approve ratification of the full Convention, including the new Article 4a and Annex VII (Ban Amendment), at the earliest possible date.
2. Ensure that the implementation legislation for adoption of the Basel Convention includes a full ban on exports, not only of hazardous wastes as prescribed by the Ban Amendment but also of Basel Annex II wastes (which include the new listings of mixed and dirty plastic waste, household waste, and incinerator ashes).
3. Reverse the US position taken at the OECD and allow the automatic adoption of the new Plastic Amendments by the OECD in their Council Decision on trade in recyclable wastes.
4. Annul the ill-advised and illegal US -- Canada Arrangement, signed on October of 2020, allowing rather for the OECD agreement to once again preside over trade in Basel wastes between the US and Canada and other OECD countries.
END