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by JANE BUSSEY, The Miami Herald

On the U.S. end, the exports appeared to be in order. International Trade Partners had Brazilian import permits, the only documents required by U.S. authorities. In the first five months of this year, the company exported more than 5,000 tons of scrap batteries to Brazil's Grupo Moura. "All the shipments were made within the law," said Milton Klein, who founded International Trade Partners in 1987. But there was a problem. Brazil's National Commission for the Environment has prohibited imports of scrap batteries since May 1994. Some exemptions are available for the rest of the year, but not for imports from the United States.

A recent Greenpeace report on the imports by Grupo Moura stirred up a mini-scandal in Brasilia as environmental groups and congressional representatives demanded to know how Grupo Moura obtained the import permits in the first place.

"We are trying to investigate how these things happen and we can't figure it out," said Marcelo Furtado, Greenpeace coordinator on hazardous wastes, who is based in Sao Paulo.

The story of the International Trade Partners-Grupo Moura connection illustrates the complexities of international trade in hazardous wastes.

Some researchers estimate that 10 percent of the 300 million to 500 million tons of hazardous wastes generated annually by industry are traded internationally. The trade is growing rapidly in certain wastes, particularly since recycling facilities, such as battery recovery, are being closed down for environmental reasons in industrialized countries.

As global trade in all goods explodes, hazardous waste trade grows also, in many cases without regulation or detection. "That is one of the concerns with the development of the global economy," said Stephan Porter, an attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law in Washington. "You've got the lowering of trade barriers, you've got so much more movement of goods internationally and it's that much harder to keep track of it."

A sign of the concern over uncontrolled shipments is the worldwide pressure that began in the late 1980s to prepare a global standard to control the trade.

The United States supported a 1989 treaty, known as the Basel Convention, to control commerce in hazardous waste. But when the effort went a step further and called for an all-out ban on shipments of hazardous wastes from industrialized countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to developing countries, Washington dropped its support.

U.S. business groups are opposed to an outright ban, arguing that it would interfere with industrial recycling and would deprive developing countries of needed raw materials. It is also big business. The United States exported 10 million tons of scrap metal in 1995, worth $1.7 billion.

Greenpeace and other environmental groups charge that "recycling" is just a loophole to allow companies to continue dumping toxic discards in poor countries.

The Basel ban takes effect next year, but only 18 countries have ratified it. Basel organizers were even forced to postpone a meeting earlier this month in Malaysia because of pollution from forest fires burning out of control in Indonesia. The new date is February 1998.

How it all started

The Basel Convention came about because of international outrage over blatant attempts to dump toxic garbage in poor countries.

Ten years ago, public sentiment was stirred by reports that toxic ash from the United States was dumped near the port of Gonaives in Haiti, while metal drums of toxic chemical wastes from Italy had been left at the port of Koko Beach in Nigeria. A renegade freighter, the Khian Sea, sailed the seas for two years with toxic incinerator ash from Philadelphia. A barge with New York garbage tried unsuccessfully to unload 3,186 tons of solid waste for six months.

"In the late '80s, we first saw the garbage barge, we saw a lot of Italian wastes wind up in Nigeria," said Jim Vallette, who heads International Trade Information Service, a non-profit research organization. "Those obvious attempts are certainly not taking place anymore."

Part of the problem for researchers and policymakers is that there are no hard numbers, in part because the toxic waste trade is now illegal. Some policymakers believe that the amount of trade has dropped since 120 countries moved to ban hazardous waste imports in 1994.

Controlling the international trade could become even more difficult if it goes underground, like the smuggling of illegal narcotics or freon used in air conditioning. Supporters of the Basel Convention say this possibility points up the need for an international standard.

"Unless things are harmonized internationally and what can and cannot be shipped agreed to by everyone, you are always going to find people who will try to get around it to make some money," said Jonathan Krueger, researcher at the London School of Economics, who specializes in international relations.

What is hazardous?

There is no set international definition on what is hazardous waste. Under EPA standards, a used car battery is not hazardous unless some of the posts are broken or it is crushed. But Brazil, for instance, bans scrap batteries as hazardous.

"It's truly trade chaos," said Harvey Alter, who heads the Business Recycling Coalition at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.

The Business Recycling Coalition has been the most active business group in opposing the ban now included in the Basel Convention.

"The original intent was to stop the dumping of bad stuff on developing countries," Alter said. "The flaw is that developing countries can ship really bad stuff to another developing country."

For instance, trade data show that the trade in scrap for recycling increased by 500 percent from 1980 to 1993 from OECD countries to non-OECD ones. But such trade among developing countries climbed over 1,500 percent in the same period, although the quantity was much smaller.

In other words, while the treaty would ban exports from the United States and Europe, Brazil could ship used car batteries to Argentina.

Besides scrap batteries, the United States exports steel electric arc furnace dust to Mexico to recover zinc, chrome and cadmium. Another big trade is photographic material used to recover the silver. Under the Basel Convention these exports would be banned.

Raw materials sought

The need for raw material is the argument behind the export of scrap batteries to Grupo Moura, a leading Brazilian battery manufacturer. Brazil has no domestic source of lead, hence importing old batteries and stripping them of lead is the cheapest source of lead in Brazil.

But after receiving reports from local residents, Greenpeace and a local environmental group ASPAN took soil and water samples from outside Grupo Moura's factories, Accumuladores Moura and Metalurguica Bitury near Belo Jardim in the northeastern state of Pernambuco.

They had the samples analyzed in Brazil and Britain and found high levels of lead contamination. The water samples showed 4.9 milligrams of lead per liter of water, compared to the maximum level of 0.05 mg/l, established in Brazil.

The soil samples showed lead concentration two to five times more than is permitted under EPA rules. Brazil has no standards.

Such high levels are not surprising. Numerous U.S. recycling plants have been closed down because of lead contamination, according to the EPA.

The Miami connection

International Trade Partners is authorized by the EPA to store hazardous wastes. Klein, who was born in Brazil, said he worked for Grupo Moura before coming to Miami to set up his scrap battery business.

U.S. Department of Commerce records show that $842,000 worth of scrap batteries were shipped from International Trade Partners to Grupo Moura in the first five months of the year. Klein said he has not exported batteries to Grupo Moura -- his only export customer -- since May.

Klein said exports was only a part of his business and his company survives on domestic sales. "I've lived many years without shipping batteries overseas," he said.

"When I arrived to do the business many years ago, it was much simpler," Klein said. "Now it is more restricted. I believe that is the way it should be."

Environmental groups are convinced the only solution is to develop clean industrial processes, such as environmentally clean substitutes for lead acid batteries.

"Once you have these cheap escape valves for waste, then the cost of engaging in dirty practices is a lot less," said Vallette, who is in favor of driving up the costs to the point "where it is more economical to put in clean systems than recycling."