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THE NEW STRAITS TIMES

Topping the list is the United States which has not ratified the Basel Convention.

Others included in the list of developed nations are Australia, the Netherlands, Germany and Canada.

The cases include:

• A decade ago, 4,000 tonnes of municipal incinerator ash from Philadelphia were unloaded from the cargo ship Khian Sea onto a beach in Gonaives, Haiti. Only this year, talks have begun to ship the ash back to a landfill in the US.
• From 1991 to 1994, Borden Chemicals and Plastics of Geismar, Louisiana, exported mercuric chloride catalyst to Thor Chemicals in Cato Ridge, South Africa. Both companies claimed the mercury was to be recycled but some 2,700 barrels of the waste were found in Thor's warehouse. Borden is facing a civil suit and a criminal investgation.
• The US continues to export zinc ash to India in spite of a New Delhi High Court ban on imports of such wastes.
• In 1991, metal smelting baghouse dusts containing high levels of lead and cadmium from Gaston Copper Recycling Corporation in South Carolina were shipped to Stoller Chemical Corporation and mixed with other materials before being exported to Bangladesh as fertiliser. Some 3,150 tonnes were purchased by the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation and some was used on farms. As part of a settlement in prosecuting the illegal export, US$1 million (RM3.6 million) was set aside to repatriate the remainder of the waste.
• Official Australian trade statistics show that 20 tonnes of zinc ash and residues were exported to Bombay in January last year without a permit. No action has yet been taken.
• On Sept 22 last year, Greenpeace activitists exposed the presence of three illegal containers of hazardous computer wastes from Australia in Hong Kong harbour. The wastes contain a cocktail of lead, cadmium and mercury. The waste was returned to Sydney in October.
• Australia is also said to have emerged as one of the top three exporters of scrap lead acid batteries to the Philippines. It had shipped 11,328 tonnes of battery scrap to the Phillipines from January 1994 to June 1996.