Author: Gerald Stoiber, translated from German
Around 700 tons of plastic waste from Austria were illegally exported to Malaysia. For this, an ex-manager and the intermediary of the business have to answer in court. It was a report by the environmental organization Greenpeace that got the ball rolling.
Read MoreAuthor: Leslie Kaufman
“I’m, like, really freaking out.” It’s a late night in April, and Tom Szaky, the founder and chief executive officer of TerraCycle Inc., is on my video screen. His mussed shoulder-length hair is spilling over a zip-up hoodie. Unusually, he’s in supplicant mode.
Read MoreThree weeks have passed since the toxic aircraft carrier SÃO PAULO came back to Brazil after Turkey blocked its import and the Brazilian Environmental Agency IBAMA required its return. Yet, the vessel is still drifting more than 12 miles off the coast of the State of Pernambuco, while both the Brazilian Navy and IBAMA fail to demand and provide a safe haven to prevent potential harm to the marine environment. International and national NGOs[1] are calling for urgent action.
Read MoreAt the 15th Conference of Parties in Geneva this June, even as we celebrated bringing non-hazardous electronic waste within the scope of the Basel Convention's control procedures for the first time, we were unable to make progress to prevent very hazardous electronic wastes from being allowed to escape the Basel Control procedures if Parties follow Paragraph 32(b) of the Guidelines on the Transboundary Movement of e-waste adopted at COP12 on an "interim basis." Under that flawed section of the Guidelines, as long as an exporter claims their container loads of e-scrap are destined for repair, then all authorities can look the other way as Basel does not apply.
Read MoreAuthor: Mitra Nazar
Bags full of finely chopped plastic lie on the side of a provincial road just outside Adana, Turkey. Farmer Izzettin Akman sees it being dumped regularly, often at night. He cut open bags to see what's inside.
Read MoreAuthor: Mark Smulian
A parliamentary committee has condemned the Government's efforts to tackle rising waste crime, describing them as slow, aimless and ineffective. Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chair, Labour’s Dame Meg Hillier, said: “Currently [Defra’s] approach to large parts of waste crime is closer to decriminalisation."
Read MoreBrussels, Belgium. September 28, 2022. The toxic waste-laden aircraft carrier SÃO PAULO is on its way back to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. IBAMA, the Brazilian Agency that had approved the export, was forced to recall the ship after Turkey barred its entrance on August 26, 2022, pending a proper and credible accounting of the volumes of hazardous wastes on board, including asbestos, PCBs, toxic paints, and radioactive wastes.
Read MoreAliağa, Turkey. September 2, 2022. Turkey has finally banned the toxic aircraft carrier SÃO PAULO from entering its national waters. For weeks, local environmental and labour rights groups, supported by international NGOs, have been protesting the voyage of the vessel from Brazil to Aliağa, demanding compliance with the Basel and Barcelona Conventions.
Read MoreAnkara, Turkey. August 23, 2022. The Brazilian government and Sok Denizcilik Tic.Ve Ltd.Sti (SOK) of Aliaga, Turkey, the buyer of the Aircraft Carrier SÃO PAULO, were sent scrambling on August 9, when Turkish authority Eyüp Karahan General Director of Environmental Management, on behalf of Minister Çevre Yönetimi Genel Müdürü, sent a letter to the Brazilian agency IBAMA, Competent Authority for the Basel Convention, requiring a new Inventory of Hazardous Materials (IHM) to be conducted prior the export:
Read MoreBrussels, Belgium. August 17, 2022. Environmental, human rights, and labor organisations from around the world are sounding the alarm over the former Brazilian aircraft carrier SÃO PAULO, now being towed across the Atlantic towards Turkey in defiance of international and Brazilian law.
Read MoreRio de Janeiro, Brussels, Izmir. 4 August 2022. Reports from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil confirm that the sister ship of the infamous aircraft carrier CLEMENCEAU, formerly known as French warship FOCH, and most recently named the SÃO PAULO, has now been placed under tow on a 6000-mile journey to Aliaga, Turkey, where it is to be scrapped. Environmental groups around the world are denouncing Brazil’s export and disposal plans in Turkey as illegal and unsafe.
Read MoreGeneva, Switzerland (June 17, 2022) – After eight days of detailed and stressful negotiations this week and last, the Parties to the Basel Convention at their 15th meeting (COP15) held in Geneva agreed by consensus to the "Swiss-Ghana Amendments." These amendments establish new definitions of hazardous and non-hazardous electronic waste, and ensure that these two categories of e-waste will either be banned from trade or at a minimum require notification by the exporting country and consent by the importing country prior to export.
Read MoreGeneva, Switzerland (June 14, 2022) – At the ongoing meeting of the Basel Convention, the Basel Action Network (BAN) and member organizations of the Break Free from Plastic movement (BFFP) in a side event, presented evidence of continued plastic waste trade, that is exported primarily from the rich developed countries to weaker economies, and charged these exporting countries with failing to uphold the agreements to control plastic waste exports made at the Basel Convention in 2019, which came into force on January 1, 2021.
Read MoreAuthor: Louis Gore-Langton
The ongoing saga of corruption allegations against TerraCycle’s UK operations was brought to a head last night in BBC Panorama’s investigation Recycling: Where Does My Rubbish Go? Company CEO Tom Szaky was confronted with evidence that his UK waste handler is a sanctioned criminal, that his business system’s collection and recycling rates are extremely low, and that the scheme is likely misleading consumers.
Read MoreAuthor: E.A. Crunden
EPA may finally classify a commonly used plastic as hazardous waste, following a long legal struggle with advocates. The Center for Biological Diversity said this afternoon that it has reached a deal with EPA over polyvinyl chloride, more well known as PVC or vinyl, following a decade of back-and-forth.
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