The organization said ships owned by the Government of Kuwait may soon be sent from Kuwaiti waters to shipbreaking yards in Pakistan, Bangladesh or India. In an exclusive statement to Kuwait Times, Chairman of the Kuwait-based Green Line environmental movement Khaled Al-Hajeri strongly deplored the dispatch of the ships from Kuwait, saying that such ships should be dismantled by the owners in Kuwait. He called for the establishment of special recycling factories to benefit from scrap material resulting from the dismantling of the ships.

"These ships are suspected of containing high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), asbestos and other hazardous wastes," said BAN. It added that exporting these vessels for scrapping on the shores of South Asia would be a violation of the UN Basel Convention, which controls the trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste, such as PCBs and asbestos and their disposal. BAN pointed out that it is illegal for a party to the Basel Convention such as Kuwait, to transport a contaminated vessel to a Basel party state, such as Pakistan, Bangladesh or India, without prior notification and consent.

"It is also illegal for such vessels to be transported without a full inventory and accounting of the hazardous waste materials they contain; and finally, it is illegal to export ships to facilities that do not maintain environmentally sound management," the watchdog reiterated in its press release. "BAN calls on Kuwait, a country of clear jurisdiction in this matter, to retain these vessels and uphold the principles of the Basel Convention," said the watchdog.

Meanwhile, Al-Hajeri said the US, France and Canada were the first to export toxic substances to certain developing countries, exposing people's health and environment to great dangers. The solution, Al-Hajeri said, is to form a fund to finance the recycling of such ships to ensure a safe and clean environment. He affirmed that though the Basel agreement clearly specifies the transporting means of toxic waste, yet many countries, including Kuwait, are not fully committed to this agreement. Al-Hajeri said Kuwait's official stand in the environment domain is considered to be very poor on the international level.