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GREENPEACE INTERNATIONAL -- Press Release

A recently published report in US daily The Baltimore Sun clearly exposes the double-standards practised by the United States of America: "The US Navy, which for years has insisted on scrapping its ships in the United States, now wants to send them abroad -- here to India, or to similar beachfronts in Pakistan or Bangladesh.

With its American scrapping program entangled in environmental and worker safety problems, criminal charges, bankruptcies and lawsuits, the Navy has decided to drop its old policy. To escape the turmoil in its domestic program, it could simply export its obsolete ships, laden with asbestos, PCBs, lead, toxic sludge and other hazards to South Asia.

The plan required the Navy to obtain an exemption from rules prohibiting the export of certain hazardous materials.

"As far as the USA is concerned, developing countries are the scavengers of the world with India heading the pack," said Nityanand Jayaraman of Greenpeace International. "Otherwise, why would they be sending their poisonous wastes to facilities with abysmal worker safety and environmental conditions?"

Informal figures suggest that at least one worker is killed everyday in the shipbreaking yards in Alang, Gujarat, due to exposure to toxins and unsafe working conditions. "Neither the US government nor India seem to be worried for the plight of the 35,000 workers in Alang or the marine environment there," Jayaraman said.

Indian laws prohibit the import of waste containing PCBs or asbestos. However, ships severely contaminated with such deadly toxins and coated with lead-based paints are routinely imported and broken at the shipbreaking yards in Alang, Gujarat. The Baltimore Sun reports that in 1996, 289 ships came to India for breaking through middlemen/brokers. The number that were sold outside the established brokerage system is unknown.

This information comes at an opportune time because the SAARC Ministers of Environment plan to meet in New Delhi on 21-22 January, 1997, to develop a common position on the issue of hazardous waste imports. The meeting is in preparation for the Fourth Conference of Parties (COP IV) to the Basel Convention to be held in Kucing, Malaysia, in February. The issue of ratification of the amendment to the Convention banning the export of hazardous wastes from OECD to non-OECD countries will be high on the agenda at COP IV.

"We hope the SAARC nations use the January 21-22 meeting to jointly and categorically denounce the US Government's blatant environmental racism and reaffirm the region's commitment to the Basel Convention and the Ban amendment," Jayaraman said.

email: nj@ilban.ernet.in