In the information relayed to the Cebu-based Philippine Environmental Journalists, the environmental groups, demands follow recent discoveries that Thailand is becoming a target for international toxic waste traders.

In recent days, it has been revealed that the Thai ports of Klong Toey in Bangkok, and another private port in Samut Prakan province have been the recipient of about 20 tonnes of hazardous computer and electronic waste, unspecified amounts of hazardous battery and medical wastes, and about 1,000 old tyres. Some of this waste has been traced to the UK and is now in the process of being returned. However, most of the waste has no traceable origin and will likely not be able to be returned, and will remain to be disposed of in Thai territory at Thai expense.

"While the Thai government has made a lot of noises lately about toughening up rules to deal with this immoral and environmentally harmful trade, they glaringly have failed to state the obvious that Thailand has to date not ever bothered to adopt a total domestic ban on the importation of hazardous wastes, nor has the government taken the steps to ratify the Basel Convention's Ban Amendment that would prohibit countries like the United Kingdom or United States from exporting their toxic effluent to us," said Tara Buakamsri, Toxics Campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

Just two months ago in December at the 6th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties of the Basel Convention on the Control of the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, all Parties to the Convention were urged to ratify the Basel Ban Amendment at the earliest possible date so that it could enter into legal force as soon as possible. The Basel Ban Amendment, once it is ratified by 62 Parties, will become part of the Basel Convention and will effectively place a global prohibition on the export of hazardous wastes from member states of the European Union, or the organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to other countries. So far, the amendment has received 35 out of the 62 necessary ratifications.

While Thailand has ratified the Basel Convention, they have not ratified the Basel Ban Amendment. The waste imports are not the first time that Thailand has been the victim of the international trade in toxic waste. In 1991, several unclaimed container loads of chemical wastes, stored for years in Klong Toey port exploded and burned sending toxic smoke billowing into the homes and lungs of residents of the Klong Toey slum where their health has been impacted to this day. The remaining waste from that disaster has been buried and covered with cement in a military dumpsite near Kanchanaburi.

"The Asian region is increasingly the target for a new wave of global toxic waste dumping, especially for the growing mountains of toxic computer waste generated in Europe and North America," said Jim Puckett, coordinator of BAN.

If Thailand is serious about protecting their population and environment from the scourge of the toxic waste trade, they will ban the import of toxic wastes in their domestic legislation and immediately take steps to ratify the Basel Ban Amendment as the global community has urged. According to the environmentalists, by ratifying the Basel Ban Amendment and passing an import ban, all ambiguity of the illegality of these shipments would be erased, and the onus would fall on the exporting nations to prosecute the illegal shipments as a criminal offence.