THEME 6: APPLICATIONS TO A PARTICULAR ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEM:  SOLID AND HAZARDOUS WASTE 

Moderator: Mr. O. Caisou

Secretary: Mr. F. Uijting

1    Goals

The theme has tried to picture concrete enforcement experiences and prospects in one western country and in several former communist countries, the particular problem of international transshipment of waste being addressed in the light of the Basel Convention.

2    Presentations

Dr. Rummel-Bulska, Chief of UNEP's Environmental Law Unit gave an overall presentation of the Basel Convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal, highlighting key provisions requiring enforcement measures. Dr. Rummel-Bulska stressed the necessity to accelerate the ratification process in most OECD countries.

 

Mr. Wojciech Radecki, Professor of Law at the institute of Law of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, indicated that the absolute prohibition of any waste imports into Poland decided in 1989 turned out to have unexpected detrimental effects for the protection of Poland's environment. As a consequence, the Polish authorities are considering new legislation which will depart somewhat from the total import ban approach.

 

Mr. Stephen Wassersug, program Manager at the Regional Environmental Center, Budapest, gave a presentation concerning transition and implementation of waste management policies in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Mr. Wassersug set out a clear methodology for designing waste management strategies in CEE countries, stressing the necessity to build on realistic goals and enforceable legislation in order to achieve voluntary compliance.

 

Mr. Ferran Relea, Director of the Junta de Residus of the Regional Government of Catalonia, gave a general presentation of the waste management system of Catalonia, a flourishing highly industrialized region enjoying extensive autonomy in a rather less developed EEC Member State. Mr. Relea underlined especially the need for skilled environmental inspectors with a good technical background.

 

Mr. Karel Velek, of the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic, described in detail enforcement in the field of waste disposal in Czechoslovakia, Mr. Velek highlighted the persistent gap between the texts and reality, given in particular the limited financial resources and the lack of qualified staff. He illustrated notably how an excessively dogmatic implementation of the principle of proximity can prevent efficient large-scale solutions.

 

Mrs. Lilliana Mära, Director of the Strategy and Policy Department of the Romanian Ministry of the Environment, presented an overall picture of the present situation of waste management in Romania. Mrs. Mära emphasized that her country is increasingly having to contend with illegal toxic waste imports.

3    Plenary and open discussion sessions

Sören Klem, INTERPOL, gave a short presentation about the role INTERPOL might play on enforcement of transboundary shipments of hazardous waste. Because of the fact that they have a large international network and a lot of experience with international crime, INTERPOL can play an important role as the central point and platform for information exchange and case coordination.

 

Huub Kesselaar, Environmental Inspectorate of the Netherlands, presented some remarks on behalf of a fast ratification of the Basel Convention. The experience in the Netherlands with transboundary shipments of hazardous waste so far is that besides controlling notification documents it is necessary to have active physical inspections. Furthermore one should look to the total waste chain. An other imported point is that there should be consistency between monitoring systems. Among others this means that cooperation is a must. As far as the Basel Convention is concerned he concluded that the problems with the definition of waste have to be solved, there should be a quick ratification of the Basel Convention within the EEC and a worldwide fast notification.

 

John Plaut, USA, stated that the USA did not ratify the Basel Convention yet. The industry testified twice on behalf of ratification. Yet, there does not seem to be political pressure. So ratification is not seen as an important thing to do. Therefore it is necessary to put more pressure on politicians. He asks if anyone can give advice how to built a strong consensus outside the environmental community.

Mr. Nigel Blackburn of the International Chambers of Commerce (ICC) adds to this that the ICC supports the Basel Convention, but they do have some concerns.

Steven Wassersug, REC Budapest, said that the media plays an important role in increasing pressure. The media is interested in public reaction. Besides that reports like those of Greenpeace give concern. In this way publicity can be elevated up to a public policy standpoint.

 

Ludwig Krämer, EEC, raises the question that lawyers should not perhaps consider whether the separation of the notion of waste from the notion of products is an error by lawyers. From an environmental point of view it is completely irrelevant if the environment is affected by substances, products or waste. So is not all of the difficulties due to the fact that we opened this huge loop-hole of allowing secondary raw materials not to consider as waste. Is not under these auspices perhaps the approach of making the convention on waste just a legal error.

Huub Kesselaar agrees with Mr. Krämer. We should call everything waste. Afterwards we always can see how to deal with it.

Ferran Relea, Spain, explains that secondary raw materials are also seen as waste. He stresses that one should not only look to waste as a result from a production process, but look at the whole chain. There should be international agreements on this subject.

 

Bruce Diamond, USA-EPA, stated that attention should paid to regulations and recycling. On one hand recycling is an important solution for the waste problem. On the other hand it appears that of the most contaminated sites about 10% is caused by recycling facilities. It is therefore that there must be good regulations for recycling facilities.

 

Martin Führ, Öko-institut Germany, points out that the appearance of waste is now a criterion for special control, because the owner has no interest in waste. If new agreements are made, there should be new criteria for control. One should be aware that if control focuses on all hazardous materials, there will be the problem that some products can be seen as hazardous waste, but because one can sell them, they are not classified as waste.

There should be a new approach in the regulations of materials. More or less a cradle to grave approach in the whole lifecycle of materials. A new regulatory screen should be developed within the EEC that brings together all the different parts in the life of materials and combine the different legal systems that are now split up.

 

Hugo de Vries, the Netherlands, stated that in some cases the appearance of hazardous waste is the price of a product. For instance the zinc-industry in the Netherlands is dealing with a waste stream. There is a technical solution for the treatment/recycling of this waste, but it is too expensive. There is to much competition with other European industries.

 

A representative of the Hungarian industry points out that one should not regard the industry as criminals. The problem is that it is always easier to be on the other side.

According to Steve Madonna, USA, industry is not criminal, but there is always a party that's making profit of something, also with waste. We should encourage the idea that recycling is an important way of continuing the existence of resources.

 

Marcia Mulkey, USA-EPA, explains that economic instruments, like taxes and fees, are important for reducing the waste streams.

Relea, Spain, explains that in the Spanish waste program some economic instruments are taken up. Besides that the taxation scheme on water will be expanded to waste. But Mr. Relea is concerned about finding the right ways where to address for perfect control. If we don't find the right way we add more difficulties for people who want to do things properly. One should be careful not to get the opposite results.

Mr. Velek explains that in the CSFR a difference is made in fees for disposal between hazardous and normal waste. If recycling takes place, no fee has to be paid by the waste owner. By this way recycling becomes attractive.

 

Jacqueline Aloisi De Lardarel, UNEP, notes that during the Rio conference issues like minimization, cleaner technologies, reuse and the use of less energy were on the agenda. The UNEP has lounged a program about these items. In October there will be a ministerial meeting in which these issues will be discussed.

 

Scott Fulton, EPA, gives a summary of the experience with transboundary shipments of waste between Canada, USA and Mexico. It appears that these activities looks like criminal activities. It is important to attend to reconcile waste tracking procedures between countries so the disappearance of waste can be checked. Furthermore we need procedures for informing each other when shipments are taking place and also procedures for sharing information for law enforcement purposes associated with these kind of shipments. An area of consideration and cooperation is making sure that we have procedures in place that allows us to relay effectively on each other and developing cases in this area.

4    Conclusions

Resuming, the following ideas emerged during the discussion.

The participants agreed that the definition and classification of waste should be the same all over the world. it was also suggested that the separation of waste law from product law turned out to be detrimental but the opinions remained divided on this. nevertheless, everybody agreed that regulations on waste management should not focus on waste disposal only should take a cradle-to-grave approach.

While most participants agreed on the need to speed up the ratification process of the Basel Convention (which it was felt would be a first step towards a better international management of waste transshipment), some raised doubts about its future enforcement pointing to the disappointing results of the EEC Directive which inspired it.

It was also stressed that an existing international structure, INTERPOL, is willing to play a more active role in the fight against illegal international transshipment of waste.

There is a little hope for efficient enforcement where the necessary infrastructure is lacking, not only technology and appropriate equipment, but also education and training.