Singapore allows return of waste
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta
After months of dispute, Singapore is set to allow the return of tons of waste that Indonesia says is hazardous, with the process expected to be completed within the coming week.
The agreement was reached during a meeting between delegations from the two neighboring states to settle the dispute, which was facilitated by the secretariat of the Basel Convention on Transboundary Hazardous Waste Control in Geneva recently.
Under the agreement, Singapore will immediately lift its current prohibition on the return of the material.
"Both parties will, within a week, initiate a process to ensure the speedy return of the material in question to Singapore," a joint press statement that followed the meeting said.
Both sides agreed, however, that Singapore had not breached the Basel Convention by exporting the material to Indonesia and that the shipment of the material back to Singapore would not be regarded as re-export under the convention.
State Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar welcomed the agreement. However, he said the government had to ensure that no repetition occurred in the future.
"They (Singapore) are the ones who sent the hazardous waste here. But, we must ensure that it will not happen again in the future. My office has no powers to take action against companies illegally importing such waste," he said.
Indonesia declared the material imported from Singapore to be toxic waste and its importation into an island off Riau last year as illegal trafficking. Singapore, however, refused to retrieve the waste and insisted that the exports were legal under its domestic law.
The export of the waste began in July last year when hundreds of tons of the waste was landed on the island following a proposal for an investment in the agricultural sector by PT APEL to Batam Mayor Nyat Kadir.
The proposal requested a permit to bring 3,000 tons of what was described as organic fertilizer to Galang. After obtaining the permit, PT APEL dumped a large number of bags, the nature of whose contents was unclear, on Galang Baru Island.
However, one month later after pressure from environmental groups and local administrations, the contents of the bags were tested and found to contain hazardous materials. Laboratory tests on the materials found they contained a variety of controlled metals and chemicals.
Rachmat went to the island in March and ordered the shipment of the waste back to Singapore.
In order to prevent any similar incidents in the future, Singapore and Indonesia agreed to utilize the services of an existing forum -- the Indonesia-Singapore Joint Working Group on the Environment (ISWG).
Both Indonesia and Singapore are parties to the Basel Convention, which aims to control the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes and their disposal.