Global waste trade
[1] The report explains that "Generally, the higher the economic development and rate of urbanization, the greater the amount of solid waste produced.
Multiple factors affect which countries produce waste and at what magnitude, including geographic location, degree of industrialization, and level of integration into the global economy.
"[6] Given this economic platform of privatization, neoliberalism is based on expanding free-trade agreements and establishing open-borders to international trade markets.
[7] Even supporters such as the International Monetary Fund, “progress of integration has been uneven in recent decades.”[8] Specifically, developing countries have been targeted by trade liberalization policies to import waste as a means of economic expansion.
[9] Their claim is that smaller countries, with less infrastructure, less wealth, and less manufacturing ability, should take in hazardous wastes as a way to increase profits and stimulate their economies.
Lawrence Summers, former President of Harvard University and Chief Economist of the World Bank, issued a confidential memo arguing for global waste trade in 1991.
The memo stated: "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that...
The ever-increasing amounts of hazardous waste being shipped to developing countries increases the disproportionate risk that the people in these nations face.
Peter Newell, Professor of Development Studies, argues that "environmental inequality reinforces and, at the same time reflects, other forms of hierarchy and exploitation along lines of class, race and gender.
"[12] In addition to critics from the Global South, researchers and scholars in the West have begun critiquing the uneven distribution of negative effects these hazardous waste dumpings are causing.
Dorceta Taylor, Professor at the University of Michigan, argues how Women of Color in the United States are disproportionately affected by these policies: "Women of color have been at the forefront of the struggle to bring attention to the issues that are devastating minority communities – issues such as hazardous waste disposal; exposure to toxins; ...Their communities, some of the most degraded environments ... are repositories of the waste products of capitalist production and excessive consumption.
[15] Toxic colonialism represents the neocolonial policy which continues to maintain global inequality today through unfair trade systems.
A rapidly growing surplus of electronic waste around the world has resulted from quickly evolving technological advances, changes in media (tapes, software, MP3), falling prices, and planned obsolescence.
Heavy metals, toxins, and chemicals leak from these discarded products into surrounding waterways and groundwater, poisoning the local people.
It may be the world's largest e-waste dump, with workers dismantling over 1.5 million pounds of junked computers, cell phones and other electronic devices per year.
Incineration has many polluting effects which include, if uncontrolled in a modern Waste to Energy (WTE) plant, the potential release of various hazardous metals in leachate (water that has percolated through the ash).
[19] However, upon being rejected by the Dominican Republic, Panama, Honduras, Bermuda, Guinea Bissau, and the Dutch Antilles, the crew finally dumped a portion of the ash near Haiti.
Based on the Khian Sea waste disposal incident and similar events, the Basel Convention was written to resist what is known to developing countries as 'toxic colonialism.
[25] The Fordham Environmental Law Review published an article explaining the impacts of the toxic waste imposed on Nigeria in further detail: "Mislabelling the garbage as fertilizers, the Italian company deceived a retired/illiterate timber worker into agreeing to store the poison in his backyard at the Nigerian river port of Koko for as little as 100 dollars a month.
They leaked into the Koko water system resulting in the death of nineteen villagers who ate contaminated rice from a nearby farm.
[26] In addition, shipbreaking workers in China and in other developing countries traditionally lack proper equipment or protective gear when handling these toxic substances.
[28] Hazardous wastes are often not properly disposed of or treated, leading to poisoning of the surrounding environment and resulting in illness and death in people and animals.
Various studies explore how the concentrations of persistent organic pollutants have poisoned the areas surrounding the dump sites, killing numerous birds, fish, and other wildlife.
On April 24, 2018, President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines threatened to declare war if Canada failed again to retrieve the 64 tonnes of garbages that they mistakenly labelled as recyclable.
During the ASEAN Summit hosted in Manila, Philippines, the Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended and was controversially ask what actions they can do to solve this issue.
There have been various international responses to the problems associated with the global waste trade and multiple attempts to regulate it for over thirty years.
Because the issue of the transnational hazardous waste trade crosses many borders and affects many nations, it has been important to have a multinational, multilateral organization presiding over these affairs.
[34] In 1999 the Basel Convention passed the Protocol on Liability and Compensation that sought to improve regulatory measures and better protect people from hazardous waste.
[15][38] Furthermore, Pratt explains that without coordinated international methods to enforce the regulations, it is extremely difficult for countries to "control the illegal trade of hazardous waste, due to the disparity between enforcement resources and regulation uniformity.” [15] Developing nations continue to bear the brunt of this illegal activity, and often do not have the resources or capability to protect themselves.
