Italian Toxic Waste Still in Lebanon

[The.Greenbase@gb.greenpeace.org]

GREENPEACE: ITALIAN TOXIC WASTE STILL LIES DUMPED IN LEBANON

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                    GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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GREENPEACE: ITALIAN TOXIC WASTE STILL LIES DUMPED IN LEBANON

Larnaca, Cyprus, May 11, 1995 - The Italian government did not
fulfill its 1988 promise to return all 2,411 tons of toxic
waste exported from Italy to Lebanon a year earlier.

At a press conference toady, held on board the MV Greenpeace
in Larnaca, Cyprus, the international environmental
organisation Greenpeace released a report which reveals that
despite claims by Italy to the contrary, most of the toxic
waste exported from Italy and dumped in Lebanon in 1987, still
lies on Lebanese soil or in Lebanese waters.

Greenpeace called upon Italy to take full responsibility for
safely collecting the wastes and returning them to Italy for
safe storage.

"Authorities were hoping that the scandal would be forgotten
in time," said Fouad Hamdan, Lebanon Campaigner for
Greenpeace's Mediterranean Office. "But toxic waste does not
forget and we cannot forget. Unless action is taken, the
poisons will continue to threaten the Lebanese environment and
public health."

The deadly shipment from Italy contained a cocktail of
hazardous chemicals: the explosive substance nitrocellulose;
outdated adhesives, pesticides, solvent wastes, outdated
pharmaceuticals, oil residues and toxic heavy metals including
lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium; chlorinated compounds
including PCBs. Some of the barrels contained extremely high
concentrations of dioxin.

In 1987, the Italian company "Jelly Wax" shipped about 15,800
barrels and 20 containers full of these highly toxic wastes to
Lebanon. "Jelly Wax" took advantage of the civil war and the
state of anarchy in Lebanon that ended after 15 years in 1990.
The now disbanded right-wing militia "Lebanese Forces" allowed
the transaction and supervised it.

The waste dumping scandal became one of the biggest
environmental scandals of the late 1980's and helped to foster
the creation of the Basel Convention in 1989, an international
treaty designed to control and prohibit "waste tourism", as
well as an agreement in the Mediterranean region to ban waste
trade within the Barcelona Convention.

When the criminal deal became known, a public outrcy in
Lebanon and internationally forced the Italian government to
promise, in 1988, to return all the toxics involved back to
Italy. Greenpeace learnt of four ships which had been sent to
Lebanon to pick up the waste and return it to Italy. But
according to Greenpeace research, only the toxic contents of
5,500 barrels were loaded in 9,500 new barrels aboard several
ships at Beirut Port in 1988/89.

More than 10,000 barrels and the contents of many containers,
remained in Lebanon, dumped in the Kisrwan mountains or along
its shores.

Some of the remaining waste was subsequently used as
fertilizer, pesticide or as so-called raw material to produce
paints or foam mattresses, the report says. Many barrels were
burned in the open air. Others were dumped in the Kisrwan
mountains east of Beirut. Ground waters are threatened with
contamination by buried toxic wastes. In some cases barrels
were emptied and sold to people to store in them petrol, water
or food.

In 1989, Italian officials claimed that all the waste had been
returned on board one ship, the "Jolly Rosso". In February
1995, the Italian Ambassador in Lebanon, Mr. Carlo Calia,
repeated that claim. However the Greenpeace report provides
extensive evidence which contradicts this claim and gives
details of the fate of the three other mystery ships which
dissappeared, never returning to Italy: the "Vorais
Sporiades", "Cunski" and the "Yvonne".

According to research, the "Yvonne" was probably sunk in the
Mediterranean Sea. The report also names some of the sites in
Lebanon where the toxic waste still lies buried: Uyun al-
Siman, Shan-Nair and Sahel Alma in the Kisrwan Mountains;
Qarantina and Burj Hammud, east of Beirut.

"Rich industrialised countries like Italy bear the moral,
political and legal responsibility to ensure that their wastes
are never exported to poorer nations. If such export does take
place they must investigate, condemn and rectify the situation
immediately and not hide behind a veil of professed
ignorance," Hamdan said.

In November 1994, Greenpeace activists took samples from
barrels of waste stored at Beirut Port. The barrels had been
found recently in the Kisrwan mountains. The test results
showed that solid waste contained heavy metals, hydrocarbons
from oil residues and chlorinated substances like HCBD, a
highly toxic chemical that causes neurological damage and
damages the kidney, and is a suspected carcinogen. The origin
of this waste could be part of the Italian dumping scheme.

Waste trade and dumping in the Mediterranean region is a
continuing epedemic. Greenpeace calls on all countries of the
Mediterranean region to adopt without further delay the waste
trade protocol of the Barcelona Convention which will ban the
trade in hazardous wastes from European Union (EU) countries
to non-EU countries.


For more information please call:

* Fouad Hamdan aboard the MV Greenpeace, Tel 00873-1300310
* Mario Damato, Coordinator, Greenpeace International,
Mediterranean Office, Malta,
     Tel ++356-803484, Fax ++356-803485.
* Melini Morzaria, Press Officer, Greenpeace Communications,
London,
     Tel ++44-71-8330600, Fax ++44-71-8376606.

Attention TV and print editors: You can order Beta-SP shots
and color photographs of the sampling action at Beirut Port in
November 1994 from Mario Damato or Greenpeace
Communications. ---