Israel Undermines World Wide Ban on Waste Trade

["greenbase" <greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org>]

ISRAEL UNDERMINES WORLD WIDE BAN ON WASTE TRADE

Greenpeace accuses Israel of projecting itself as a garbage-led
economy

25 FEBRUARY 1998 KUCHING, MALAYSIA -- Israel announced during
the Basel Convention negotiations in Malaysia its intention to
import hazardous wastes from industrialised countries and become
a major waste management center in the region. According to the
environmental organisations Greenpeace and Basel Action Network,
Israel has ignored the fundamental Basel principles of waste
minimisation, reduction of transboundary movement of hazardous
wastes, and adoption of clean production. 

"By arguing for imports of hazardous wastes from rich countries,
Israel is projecting itself as a garbage-led economy," said
Kevin Stairs of Greenpeace International. "Not only that, the
move threatens to derail a Ban which took the G-77 nations more
than a decade to win." The proposal that has drawn criticism
from environmental organisations is Israel's application to join
the ranks of OECD and EU countries in order to receive hazardous
wastes from them. Currently, a landmark 1995 amendment (known as
the Basel Ban) to the Basel Convention prohibits the export of
hazardous wastes from OECD to non-OECD countries like Israel. 

Israel has an abysmal track record of managing its own waste. At
least 60,000 tons of hazardous waste of unknown composition and
thought to have originated from Israel are currently stockpiled
in a sea of leaking barrels in Israel's Negev desert dump of
Ramat Hovav. The Israeli authorities have built an incinerator
for this waste and started the polluting operation last year.

"Israel is among those countries which have demonstrated that
they can't handle their own waste; its amazing that its proposal
to import more hazardous wastes has not been clearly rejected by
the international community," said Jim Puckett of Basel Action
Network, a recently launched international network of NGO's. 

A similar attempt by Israel in 1996 to import hazardous wastes
from the OECD parties to the Barcelona Convention was rejected
by the contracting parties. Israel is reported to be one of the
last few countries that continue the universally condemned
practice of ocean dumping of toxic sludge in the Mediterranean
sea. 

Greenpeace on the Internet at http://www.greenpeace.org