January

• BAN, as part of the Ban Mercury Working Group (Ban-Hg-Wg) helps prepare report and strategy for the United Nations Environment Program Governing Council meeting in Nairobi in order to retain, as part of the recommendations and adoption of the global assessment on mercury, the possibility of a treaty in future on mercury and perhaps other heavy metals.
  
  
• BAN as part of Ban-Hg-Wg releases press release revealing and condemning USA leaked policy documents that call for the US opposing development of a treaty governing mercury in future.
  
  
• Victory! -- Nairobi UNEP governing Council rebuffs USA and agrees to keep the door open to the possibilities of a legally binding instrument on mercury pollution.
  
  
• BAN begins work with the Washington Citizens for Resource Conservation (WCRC) to launch legislation in Washington State to require producer responsibility for electronic waste, to phase-out the use of toxics in electronics, and to close off the cheap and dirty escape routes for e-waste of prison labor, landfill dumping and export.
  
  
• BAN attends the International Electronics Recycling Congress in Basel, Switzerland as key note speaker.

February

• BAN together with the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and the Computer TakeBack Campaign launch on the anniversary of the release of "Exporting Harm", the list of 15 companies that have agreed to the world's most rigorous set of criteria for responsible recycling of electronic waste -- The Electronic Recycler's Pledge of True Stewardship. The launch is initiated by the release of a color brochure, and ad copy as well as 6 press conferences nationwide. Press coverage from the release is excellent. BAN sponsors the press conference in Seattle, WA.
  
  
• BAN together with Greenpeace Thailand releases press release urging Thailand, in the wake of new dumping scandals there, to ratify the Basel Ban Amendment and to ban the import of hazardous waste domestically.
  
  
• BAN's film Exporting Harm: The High Tech Trashing of Asia is shown at PREPCOM2 of the World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva.
  
  
• BAN testifies in Olympia, Washington before the Commitee on Fisheries, Forests and Resources, in support of the newly introduced House Bill 1942 to responsibliy deal with electronic waste.

March

• BAN appears three times in Washington Post Stories on Electronic Waste as well as on the US Government attempt to export its obsolete and toxic Naval Vessels to developing countries.
  
  
• BAN attends and presents at the NGO gathering of 120 toxics activists sponsored by the Global Anti-Incineration Alliance (GAIA) in Penang, Malaysia.

April

• BAN attends the Shipbreaking Conference 2003 sponsored by the National Environmental Education and Training Center (NEETC) in Washington D.C. and presents in two panels. Denounces MARAD’s plans to export obsolete Naval vessels.
  
  
• BAN attends the First Open Ended Working Group (OEWG) of the Basel Convention.  Holds excellent side meetings with US, Canada, China, and United Nations Human Rights Commission.
  

May

• BAN attends and presents at the Northeast Resource Recovery Association Conference held in New Hampshire on E-waste.
  
  
• BAN attends the 2003 International Symposium on Electronics and the Environment held in Boston.  Maintains booth with other activists and presents as part of controversial Panel on Export.
  
  
• BAN’s Ravi Agarwal attends shipbreaking and liability conference in the Netherlands – calls for upholding the principles of the Basel Convention.
  
  
• BAN joins Greenpeace and other activists of the Ban-Hg-Wg in press release applauding the reimporation of mercury from Unilever’s plant in India – demand halt to toxic mercury trade.
  
  
• BAN launches new more professional website.
  

June

• BAN is invited to attend the National Electronics Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI) negotiations held in Seattle to determine what form national legislation on electronic waste will take.  Issues press release with Computer TakeBack Campaign urging states to forge ahead on E-waste legislation.
  
  
• BAN attends the international conference onMetals and Energy Recovery in Skelleftea, Sweden.  Presents key speech, shows film and visits Boliden smelter.

July

• BAN attends as part of Greenpeace delegation to the IMO meeting of the Marine Environmental Protection Committee (MEPC) to denounce IMOs shipbreaking guidelines as inconsistent with Basel Convention.
  
  
• BAN conducts with the Computer TakeBack Campaign the HardDrive to Dell Computer protest campaign against Dell’s regressive recycling policies.  Protest starts in Seattle and culminates at Shareholder’s meeting in Austin.
  

August

• BAN learns of intent by the Maritime Administration (MARAD) to export 13 ships of the “ghost fleet” to the Able UK company in Teeside, United Kingdom, and begins to organize a coalition to halt the export. Engages Sierra Club and Earthjustice in forging a legal response.

September

• BAN joins with Sierra Club and Earthjustice and files notification of intent to sue MARAD and the Environmental Protection Agency in their attempted export of 13 toxic “ghost fleet” ships to the UK.
  
  
• BAN denounces California's Electronic Waste monitor bill SB 20 in their own press release as being an affront to global environmental justice, and joins the Computer TakeBack Campaign in issuing a statement of non-endorsement of the bill, due to the fact that it fails to establish a policy of extended producer responsibility and actually legitimises exports from California rather than prohibit them.
  
  
• BAN joins with Sierra Club and Earthjustice and files lawsuit against MARAD and EPA and asks for an emergency restraining order against imminent export of ships.
  
  
• BAN gets large article published entitled “Recycling: no excuse for global environmental injustice”, in Waste Management World, Sept-Oct 2003 edition.

October

• Victory! -- Judge grants BAN/Sierra Club a partial restraining order and blocks 9 of the 13 ships for export. Further, the judge calls for the government to complete a new Environmental Assessment which was also called for in our suit.
  
  
• BAN attends Open Ended Working Group of Basel Convention in Geneva and presses successfully with a majority of Parties for a determination that end-of-life ships are a waste and are a hazardous waste when contaminated with hazardous materials.
  
  
• BAN releases report “Needless Risk: The Bush Administration's Scheme to Export Toxic Waste Ships to Europe” in Geneva press conference, Friends of the Earth UK releases it in London.
  
  
• Victory! -- United Kingdom Environment Agency declares authorizations to import and scrap the 13 ships are invalid. At least 4 permits are later found to be wanting and raises the likelihood that the 4 ships that arrived in UK may have to be repatriated back to the US.

November

• Victory! -- BAN works behind the scenes with European Parliament and the European Environment Bureau to amend the Draft Revised European Waste Shipment Regulation to strengthen it significantly. The European Parliament adopts most of BAN's revisions.
  
  
• As the 4 ghost fleet ships dock in the UK, the Bush administration comes under more intense European criticism for their toxic ship exports and the international press roundly condemns the dumping.
  
  
• BAN and Sierra Club amend the legal complaint against MARAD and EPA to include a RCRA violation as well.

December

• BAN submits groundbreaking new ideas on precisely how to resolve the legal problems on shipbreaking to the Basel Convention Secretariat and Parties.