Rich nations treating Asia as 'the cesspit'

Rich nations treating Asia as 'the cesspit'

BANGKOK (AFP): The world's rich nations are treating Asia as the cesspit of the industrialized world by paying developing countries to take their toxic wastes, Greenpeace said on Friday.

"Industrialized countries are spending money to dump waste in less developed Asian countries, and to buy incinerators in those countries to burn rich states' waste," said Tara Buakamsri of Greenpeace Southeast Asia.

"We will no longer be the cesspit for the industrialized world," he said at a Greenpeace-run conference of 12 Asian nations here.

Tara said Japan is one of the world's largest producers of deadly toxins and heavy metals, which are emitted into the air when burnt at incinerators or dumped in poorly-regulated landfills.

And now it was stepping up its strategy of offering Southeast Asian states money to build incinerators to burn its transferred waste, he said.

"It is unacceptable that Japan, which has created an environmental health disaster in its own backyard ... is pushing to export its polluting machines."

Global organizations, including the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, are contributing to the hazardous waste control techniques by funding these projects, Greenpeace said in a statement.

Incinerators have been identified throughout the industrialized world as the primary source of dioxins, considered the most potent toxic chemicals known to humankind, it said.

The incinerators sold to developing Asian states "are causing severe environmental, social and public health problems which disproportionately impact and dislocate low income neighborhoods."

Bangkok's city administration has recently decided to buy incinerators to burn up waste -- its own as well as garbage shipped in from other countries.

Greenpeace said it has set up a regional anti-toxic dumping and ecological protection organization called Waste Not Asia to curb rich states' plans to move even more waste here.

Asia will no longer allow "a toxic technology being dumped on us by some of the most polluted nations in the world," Tara said.

Waste Not Asia will strive to replace toxic waste dumping and incineration with recycling and more effective waste management, said Sasanka Dev, an Indian environmental activist.

"We would like to put governments and the incinerator industry on notice that we now have the ability, information and skills to challenge their visionless designs," he said.

Dioxins have been linked to a variety of cancers and congenital birth defects.

Earlier this year, Japanese authorities detained four Greenpeace protesters on trespass charges for scaling a building to protest waste incineration by draping signs proclaiming Tokyo to be the dioxin capital of the world.

Dioxin incineration "is an ongoing public health disaster in Japan," said Koa Tasaka, a Japanese heavy metals and chemical expert at the conference.