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BAN Press Release NEW YORK, USA, 15 May 2001 -- Environmentalists applauded what they hailed as a significant and influential decision by China to ratify the "Ban Amendment" to the Basel Convention on theTransboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal earlier this month (1 May2001). The Basel Ban Amendment, when in force, will effectively prohibit the export of hazardous wastes from the member states of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and Liechtenstein (the most developed industrialized nations) to the rest ofthe world (including China). The Basel Ban was originally sponsored by China and the Group of 77(G77) in 1994 and was later adopted as a proposed amendment to the Basel Convention in 1995.China's ratification is the 25th official ratification of 62 needed for the amendment to enter into force, and has been anticipated due to its significance. "China is one of the countries which continues to be victimized by the international trade in hazardous wastes and is also one of the key architects of the ban," said Basel Action Network's (BAN) coordinator Jim Puckett. "Additionally, many countries look to China, which has both the qualities of a developed and developing country, for leadership on North/South issues of this kind," he said. "We expect now to see increasing ratifications of this vital instrument of international environmental justice by many more developing countries." China had, in the recent past, been victimized by unwanted plastic, electronic scrap and metallic sludge waste shipments from the United States, Australia, Japan, and European countries. Most of this waste was exported as recyclable, but in fact was not, due to contamination or the lack of technologies to recycle it. Exporters simply exploited the difficulty a country like China has of monitoring and inspecting its numerous sea ports and countless container loads of cargo. The high costs of appropriate environmentally sound waste management continues to make the international trade in hazardous wastes extremely lucrative for unscrupulous traders. China becomes only the second Asian country to have ratified the Ban Amendment, joining Sri Lanka. So far 25 countries in total have ratified the ban including Andorra, Austria, Bulgaria, China, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, The European Economic Community, Finland, The Gambia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, United Kingdom, and Uruguay. For more information contact: Jim Puckett, Basel Action Network (BAN), telephone: +1.206.652.5555, fax: +1.206.652.5757, Email: jpuckett@ban.org For more information on the Basel Ban visit: www.ban.org Further Courtesy Contacts: Basel Convention Secretariat, Ms. Sachiko Kuwabara-Yamamoto, telephone: +41.22.979.92.18, fax: +41.22.797.34.54, Email: sashiko.kuwabara@unep.ch Basel Competent Authority, China, Mr. Zhang Liwei, Deputy Director
General, Department of PollutionControl, State Environment Protection Administration,
telephone: +86.10.661.519.18, fax: +86.10.661.545.47, Email: wgutichu@public.bta.net.cu.
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