EU urged to act on toxic waste dumping

“Banning shipments of hazardous waste for disposal to poorest countries is a laudable achievement,” Greenpeace said, referring to EU adoption of the 1989 Basel Convention, which was ratified by most EU states by 1998. “Yet large amounts of waste are shipped from Europe and the US to Africa and Asia on a daily basis,” it said, noting that most are illegal shipments of electronic or e-waste, such as computers, cell phones and television sets.

The EU adopted tough regulations on e-waste in 2003 yet almost 70 per cent is unaccounted for, Greenpeace said, citing figures from the European Commission.

“Waste management is extremely lucrative,” the group said, citing a sector turnover of €100bn ($124bn), providing up to 1.5m jobs. Europe generates some 1.3bn tonnes of household and industrial waste a year, plus 700m tonnes of agricultural waste, according to the European Environment Agency. Of this, 40m tonnes is hazardous.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has estimated that the EU generates 8.7 m tonnes of e-waste a year and that African countries, primarily Nigeria and Ghana, “run the risk of becoming the rubbish dumps of the planet”.

“Lack of enforcement, control and data collection on EU waste exports is common in all member states for the very simple reason that illegal waste shipments to poor countries save a lot of money to both business and governmental agencies in charge of monitoring the implementation of EU waste legislation,” Greenpeace said.

It urged the EU to implement its own toxic waste prevention measures.

A chapter of the 37-page report is devoted to Somalia and the release to Greenpeace of an Italian investigation into the suspected dumping of radioactive and other toxic waste at Eel Ma’an from 1990 to 1997 in an alleged deal between Italian businesses and local warlords. The inquiry was eventually dropped for lack of evidence because the authorities were unable to inspect the site.

In 2005, Giancarlo Marocchino, a businessman at the centre of the investigation, testified before a parliamentary inquiry into the deaths of two Italian journalists in Mogadishu and denied involvement in waste dumping. He said the containers were filled with rocks.

Greenpeace urged the UN to carry out an independent assessment into the alleged dumping of toxic and radioactive waste in Somalia.

Francesco Fonti, a former Mafia boss who is collaborating with investigators, told the Financial Times in 2009 that he had personally dumped 3,000 barrels of toxic waste in or off Somalia. He alleged that secret services of various countries supplying weapons to Somali regimes were complicit.

Gaetano Pecorella, a senator and head of an Italian commission on illegal dumping, was reported this month to have voiced suspicions that Italian secret services had been involved in illegal waste disposal and requested the assistance of parliament’s security committee.

Separately, Donato Ceglie, a veteran “eco-mafia” prosecutor covering what is known as the “Triangle of Death” – the area around Naples where high cancer rates have been linked to toxic waste dumped by the mafia – told reporters in Rome this week that investigators recently seized containers of waste being shipped illegally to China, India and Pakistan.

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Source: FT.com