RI maintains ban against trade in toxic waste

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia will continue to ban all trade in hazardous waste, irrespective of the outcome of an upcoming international conference on the enforcement of a global ban, State Minister of Environment Sarwono Kusumaatmadja said yesterday.

Indonesia remains committed to the ban it imposed two years ago and will support the current international move to ban such trade worldwide, Sarwono told reporters at his office.

Developing countries are expected to push for the incorporation of a global ban on trade of hazardous waste into the Basel Convention at the conference in Geneva, which is slated for Sept. 18 to Sept. 22.

The United States and Australia and a lobby organization representing powerful industrialists in the West are expected to put up stiff opposition to the plan to amend the convention.

"In theory, this process should be a smooth transformation, because the majority of the participants from last year's convention agreed to the total ban," Sarwono said.

Meanwhile, a representative of the Amsterdam-based Greenpeace International has been in town to lobby various officials and agencies this week to ensure that Jakarta does not back down from its position at the Geneva meeting.

Kevin Stairs, Greenpeace advisor on treaties and conventions, said the United States, Australia and industrial lobby groups are likely to put pressure on developing countries to break their solidarity on the issue.

"The long period of debate to come to an agreement on a total ban on hazardous waste is over. They are not supposed to try to break it," Stairs told a press conference held at the office of the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law.

He warned that if the meeting failed to incorporate the ban, it would take a long time to get another agreement.

Exports of hazardous waste for recycling purposes are nothing but the transfer of pollution from wealthy countries to developing countries, he said.

Indonesia imposed a ban on the importation of toxic and hazardous waste in September 1993.

The government came under strong criticism from non- governmental environmental groups in May, however, when it issued a new decree allowing for some "restricted" imports of hazardous waste that is deemed to have economical value.

The relaxation allowed for the importation of used batteries, a move designed chiefly to bail out local battery manufacturers which rely on such imports as their main raw material.

The Basel Convention, which addresses the generation and trans-border movement of hazardous wastes, is a global convention proposed by developing countries. The convention, negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Program in the late 1980s in response to growing concern about the export of hazardous waste, was finalized and adopted in March 1989.

At the second conference, in 1994, a group of over 100 developing countries, together with China, Central and Eastern European countries, and the majority of industrialized countries, formed a strong coalition demanding the ban.

The consensus stated that a ban on all hazardous waste exports for final disposal from the industrialized countries to less industrialized countries would be effective as of Jan. 1, 1998.

Stairs said the ban is expected to stop pollution transfer from those with the means and capacity to address the problem, and force the industries involved to employ clean substitute products and technologies which all will benefit from.

He said that he has visited Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and the Philippines to do lobby over the issue.

"All of the officials stated that they would maintain their position to support the ban," he said. (imn)