space Basel Action News, Vol 1, #1

"Recognizing that transboundary movements of hazardous wastes, especially to developing countries, have a high risk of not constituting an environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes as required by this Convention."

This does not simply mean that developing countries have insufficient technology or infrastructure for the environmentally sound management of hazardous waste. Although that is most often the case, it can be argued that the environmentally sound management of hazardous waste does not exist anywhere in the world. Indeed a hazardous waste recycling facility that does not pollute the environment or pose a serious risk to workers and nearby communities, cannot be found in any part of the world.

More importantly, the export of hazardous wastes from the richest, most wasteful countries (OECD) to poorer (non-OECD) countries, regardless of technical capacity, can never constitute environmentally sound management as such exports lower the effective cost of pollution, and therefore work as a direct disincentive to waste prevention and minimization. And all modern governments and waste experts agree that waste prevention and minimization is the most important principle of waste management.

Indeed, the paragraph taken from the Ban Decision above does not refer to "disposal or recycling" in developing countries, but rather to "movements" (trade) in hazardous waste as constituting the likely risk. Those that argue to expand Annex VII or allow bilateral agreements to circumvent the ban, conveniently forget the paramount waste minimization principle which is at the heart of the raison d'etre of the Basel Ban and indeed the Basel Convention.