The Hindu : U.N. meet to discuss disposal of e-wastes

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Dec 09, 2002

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U.N. meet to discuss disposal of e-wastes

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI DEC. 8. After the e-revolution of the past two decades, the world is now faced with the problem of disposal of e-wastes.

The issue has assumed such a proportion that a meeting of Environment Ministers from across the world has been convened under the aegis of the United Nations to formulate a global response to it.

The United Nations Information Centre here said that representatives of the electronics industry would also be attending the meeting, which is being organised as part of the sixth conference of parties to the Basel Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal being held in Geneva from December 9-13.

The meet would be preceded by a ceremony where top officials of nine leading mobile phone manufacturers will announce their intention to form a partnership with the Basel Convention on a plan for environmentally sound management of end-of-life mobile phones.

The COP of the Basel Convention would also consider approval of a new set of technical guidelines on the handling and disposal of plastic wastes, biomedical and healthcare wastes, lead-acid batteries and dismantling of ships.

The other issues on the agenda include a discussion of efforts to combat illegal trade in hazardous wastes, a decision to establish a mechanism for compliance and implementation and the development of regional centres as the main instruments of the Convention to assist in building capacity in member-governments.

The conference will include a high-level segment attended by Ministers and heads of delegations during the final two days. About 600 participants are expected.

The Basel Convention was adopted by the international community in March 1989.

It regulates the movement of hazardous wastes and obliges its member countries to ensure that such wastes are managed and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.

Governments are expected to minimise the quantities that are transported, to treat and dispose off wastes as close as possible to where they were generated, and to minimise the generation of hazardous waste at source.

In a pre-conference statement, Klaus Toepfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, under whose auspices the Convention was negotiated and adopted, noted that with some 150 million tonnes of hazardous wastes produced every year, the industrial world needed to accelerate its investments in cleaner production technologies and processes that can reduce wastes.

"The Governments and industry must work together to improve recycling systems and treatment plants. In all cases, poorer countries and communities must not be forced to shoulder the burdens of our industrial economy by being on the receiving end of hazardous wastes that they did not create," he added.

From India, a high-level delegation led by the Union Environment Minister, T.R. Baalu, is expected to attend the conference.

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