TOUR LOGBOOK

11 February 2000 - Bangkok

UNCTAD PROMOTES TOXIC WASTE DUMPING IN ASIA

BANGKOK- The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is promoting hazardous waste dumping to Asia and to other less industrialised regions by encouraging them to open borders to toxic exports from rich countries, two international environmental organisations, Greenpeace and Basel Action Network (BAN), stated today.

Greenpeace and Basel Action Network today protested UNCTAD's role in promoting waste dumping in Asia by flying a banner at the Bangkok Democracy Monument. Democracy includes everyone's right to a clean environment, an aspect which both organisations accused UNCTAD of ignoring.

On the 12th of February, people's organisations from around the world are beginning their week-long protest against the implications of trade on human rights and the environment. UNCTAD lasts from 12th-19th February.

While UNCTAD was set-up to assist less industrialised nations to progress sustainably, the agency is using "free trade" as an excuse to promote the export of hazardous waste to Asia. Together with Basel Action Network, Greenpeace released a report about recent cases of hazardous waste dumping in Asia. The report, released - on the eve of the UNCTAD meeting, outlines several recent cases of hazardous waste dumping in Asia, including the export of toxic ships-for-scrap to India and China, and the export of contaminated lead scrap to Thailand and the Philippines. For transport, these hazardous wastes are guised as recyclables, but investigations have shown that Philippine and Indian recipients of the transported materials suffer inherent health and environmental degradation as a result.

The two organisations accused the UN body of becoming a willing tool of a powerful minority of industries and industrial nations, such as US, Canada, Australia and Japan, who seek to keep the gates of Asia open to receive their poisonous waste. It is seen as ironic that UNCTAD has spent considerable effort to suggest means to undermine the Basel Ban by using "free trade" jargon although it is meant to assist less developed countries to progress sustainably.

"The 1994 Basel Ban on the dumping of hazardous wastes on less industrialised nations by Western countries was a hard-won victory for the G77 nations and China. It is a inappropriate that international organisations such as UNCTAD continue to keep toxic dumping alive by undermining the Ban," said Jim Puckett of Basel Action Network.

Asian countries, particularly Thailand, India and the Philippines are among the most preferred dumping grounds for the West's hazardous wastes, which enter these countries in the pretext of being wastes destined for recycling.

"Not all recycling is green. When you recycle hazardous wastes, you're left with a toxic legacy," said Tara Buakamsri, Greenpeace's Toxics Campaigner in Thailand.

"We're here to expose UNCTAD's greenwash, and alert the people of Asia to prevent their countries from becoming the dumping ground for the West. Asian nations should ratify the Basel Ban to further protect their people and environment," said Marcelo Furtado, Toxics Campaigner with Greenpeace International.

The activist organisations demanded that UNCTAD should stop working against the Basel Ban but to seek to fulfill its mandate of assisting the less industrialised world in their efforts to avoid the toxic development path taken by the rich countries.

17 Feb 2000 - Rainbow Warrior heads for The Philippines

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