GP Urges Beirut:Ask Italy to Return Toxics

[The.Greenbase@gb.greenpeace.org]

GREENPEACE URGES BEIRUT GOVERNMENT:


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                   GREENPEACE PRESS RELEASE
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GREENPEACE URGES BEIRUT GOVERNMENT:
ASK ITALY TO RETURN ALL TOXIC WASTE STILL IN LEBANON

Beirut,  Lebanon,  May  12, 1995 (GP)-Greenpeace  today  urged
the  Lebanese government to officially ask Italy to return
toxic waste  an  Italian company dumped in Lebanon in 1987.
Despite  promises  made by the Italian government in 1988 that
all the wastes  would  be returned, only a small amount of the
2,411 tons of toxic waste  was shipped out of Beirut in
1988/89, while the rest remained  in  Lebanon's soil and
waters.

"Greenpeace calls upon the Lebanese government to demand that
the  Italian  government fulfill its 1988 promise and return
all  the  toxic  waste  to  Italy," Fouad Hamdan,  Lebanon
Campaigner  for  Greenpeace's Mediterranean Office, said at a
press conference  in  Beirut today.

A  day earlier in Larnaca, Cyprus, 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.

"Authorities  were hoping that the scandal would be forgotten
in  time,"  Hamdan  said.  "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."

"Italy  must take full responsibility. It has a moral
obligation  to  organize and finance a safe recovery of the
remaining  waste  and  returning them to Italy for safe
storage. Contaminated  land  in   Lebanon   must  be
rehabilitated  and   Lebanese   citizens  indemnified if
proven victims of the
waste," he said.

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nitrocellulose;   outdated  adhesives, pesticides, solvent
wastes, outdated  pharmaceuticals,  oil  residues  and toxic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
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 the
ships  at Beirut Port in 1988. 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, Lebanon Campaigner, Greenpeace Mediterranean
Office, in Beirut, Tel ++961-1-631031;
Mario  Damato,  Coordinator,Greenpeace  Mediterranean
Office,in  Malta, Tel ++356-803484, Fax ++356-803485;
Melini  Morzaria,  Press Officer, Greenpeace  Communications,
in  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 the Mediterranean Office or from
Greenpeace Communications.