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Greenpeace Press Release NEW DELHI, India, 11 September 2000 -- Import data compiled by Greenpeace from Government of India statistics for 1998-1999 indicates that more than 100,887 tonnes, including hazardous and potentially hazardous wastes have entered India illegally, some in violation of a 1997 Indian Supreme Court order banning the imports of hazardous wastes into India. The import data was released even as a High Power Committee of the Supreme Court was gearing up to submit a stock-taking report on the status of indigenously generated and imported hazardous wastes in the country. The Indian Supreme Court ban was imposed after Greenpeace exposed the imports from Germany in 1995 of waste zinc ash containing high levels of heavy metals by Bharat Zinc Ltd, an Indian waste recovery facility. Subsequent investigations by Greenpeace and other Indian non-government organisations revealed the unregulated imports of a variety of hazardous wastes such as brass ash and used lead-containing automobile batteries. Currently, hazardous wastes listed by the Basel Convention are banned for imports into India. Potentially hazardous wastes, including ashes and residues of non-ferrous metals and alloys such as zinc and brass, can only be imported if prior permission is acquired and if the consignments are accompanied by analytical results proving the consignments to be non-hazardous. PVC scrap, which is often a significant component of copper cable scrap, is currently restricted for imports, and will be reviewed for inclusion as hazardous wastes under Indian law. Wastes such as zinc ash, residues and skimmings; lead waste and scrap; used batteries; and waste and scrap of metals such as cadmium, chromium, cobalt, antimony, hafnium and thallium have been exported to India from countries including OECD nations such as Germany, USA, Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, UK, Belgium and Norway. These imports have occurred without any authorisation or the knowledge of the Indian Ministry of Environment. Some of these waste items are also illegal under the laws of European Union nations and Australia, both of which have banned the exports of hazardous wastes to non-OECD countries. Greenpeace has the Indian Ministry of Environment for its failure to take the Supreme Court ban seriously, and for failing to stem the tide of toxic waste dumping in India. Equally to blame are the exporters and exporting country governments which seek to exploit the limitations in the Indian regulatory infrastructure to export their environmental liabilities. "The Indian Ministry of Environment's go-ahead-and-dump-on-us attitude portrays the agency as anti-environment. Through their inaction and attempts to dilute the Supreme Court order by seeking entry for selected hazardous wastes, they have brought us back to square one as far as hazardous wastes dumping in India is concerned," said Nityanand Jayaraman, Greenpeace's Asia Toxics Campaigner in India. "The Ministry of Environment has shown no sincerity in obeying the Supreme Court order, and has in many instances even sought to obfuscate issues by attempting to free up imports of zinc ash, toxic lead-containing wastes and hazardous ships-for-scrap. The blame for India's status as a global dumping ground lies as much with the Ministry as it does with the waste traders and exporters," said Greenpeace. Greenpeace urges the Government of India to live up to its obligations to the Basel Convention by ratifying the Basel Ban on exports of hazardous wastes from industrialising countries to industrialising nations. "The Governments of exporting countries should make sure that this immoral and illegal trade in hazardous wastes is stopped at source," said Jayaraman. For more information, contact: Shailendra Yashwant, Media co-ordinator, Mob: 09820182304. Telfax: +91 (11) 4310651 Nityanand Jayaraman, Asia Toxics Campaigner, Mob: 09820194022. Tel: +91 11 4313458 Website: www.greenpeaceindia.org FAIR USE NOTICE. This document contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The Basel Action Network is making this article available in our efforts to advance understanding of ecological sustainability and environmental justice issues. We believe that this constitutes a `fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond `fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. More News |