Context can be important, and so writing today still smarting from my beloved Manchester United’s unceremonious dumping out of the Champions League by FC Basel, what else could I write about other than Basel? Not the football team of course (I have read enough about them, thank you) but the Basel Convention and more topically the recent developments at the tenth Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention held in Colombia.
It may have passed many by, obsessed as we are by weekly bin collections and the state of the Eurozone, the two most important issues facing the country at the moment (in the eyes of some newspapers). However, it is worth a fresh look, as in October all 178 countries that are Parties to the Basel Convention supported the early entry into national laws of the Basel Ban Amendment prohibiting all exports of hazardous wastes, including electronic wastes and old obsolete ships from developed to developing countries.
Although this amendment has been in existence for 16 years, it will only come into force when 68 of the original 90 countries that ratified Basel in 1995 have ratified this proposal. So far 51 have done so, and it is expected that the balance needed will do this in the next couple of years.
Probably the biggest absentee from the table on Basel remains the United States, which has still not ratified the convention at all. Previous laggards (including Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Japan) have now signed up, and it is expected that there will be more diplomatic pressure upon the US and other absentees to ratify, especially as they will (in theory) find it hard to avoid the implications of the amendment.
Closer to home, the issue of the export of used electronic goods to developing countries, especially in Africa, was spotlighted in a recent meeting of the Associate Parliamentary Sustainable Waste Group. There was a mixed response to a call for a total ban on exports of used electronics for reuse until recipient countries had decent recycling infrastructure available for the reclamation of those products when finally at their end of life. For some observers, such a ban is a step too far because the items have a genuinely valuable second life in most developing countries that will be met by other exporters if we don’t fulfil the need; they say we should assist in developing recycling infrastructure rather than place a blanket ban on product export for reuse.
Of course, the two elements to this conversation connect, as an Environment Agency manager said recently “many illegal exports are being made under the guise of fit for reuse”, and so inevitably the focus falls back on our regulators and enforcement regimes and the clear lack of priority we give to resolving these issues. Ratifying a convention is one thing; implementing the necessary measures to fulfil it is another.
Clearly, we should spotlight the shortcomings of the inspection and regulatory regime, but we should also be spotlighting the companies that ply this grubby trade. Now, I know this is difficult, because by definition they are often hard to find, operating in an underworld of holding companies and offshore registrations. This probably has to be left to the regulators and the investigative journalists, but is there something more that should be done to promote the value of legitimate trade in second-life products, linked to support for the development of recycling infrastructure in developing countries?
It makes me think there is a parallel with the Fairtrade movement, which has done so much to positively promote our trade with developing countries by building the relationships and the supply infrastructure that gives farmers and others a fair price for their product and labour on a more sustainable basis. Something similar could be valuable for product reuse through export and ultimate recycling – a FairRecycling initiative or something like that?
I shall ponder on this as I wend my weary way to Old
Trafford on Thursday nights for the Europa League matches.
Thank you, Basel...
With acknowledgement to Basel Action Network: www.ban.org
If any readers would like to talk more about this, let’s set up a discussion. Contact me through: www.raygeorgesonresources.co.uk
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