BIR slams illegal traffic in household waste

Archiv – The Belgium-based Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) has condemned in the strongest possible terms the illegal traffic of household waste between Europe and developing countries.The Belgium-based Bureau of International Recycling (BIR) has condemned in the strongest possible terms the illegal traffic of household waste between Europe and developing countries.
Reports in Belgium’s national daily newspaper Le Soir of the discovery of illegal household waste shipments between the Republic of Ireland and India illustrate the extent of this trade, with some 56 containers totalling more than 1000 tonnes having been stopped at Antwerp docks. It is not known how much material reached its destination or went elsewhere.
BIR is quick to commend the efforts of the Antwerp authorities but says it is reasonable to suppose many other docks within the EU have lesser and therefore inadequate controls in place. Increased efforts are therefore needed, it suggests, to enforce European waste shipment legislation.
The waste discovered recently was described as a mixture of paper, plastic bottles, glass, cardboard and metal packaging. While BIR supports the recycling of each one of these materials, the first stage in the recycling process is to separate these materials from each other ’as exports of so-called co-mingled household or packaging wastes cannot be supported’€™. The separation stage must take place as close as possible to where these household or packaging wastes are collected. Considering the considerable amount of food residue likely to remain in such packaging waste, exports of such mixed materials will probably give rise to health and environmental issues, stresses the world recycling organisation.
Household waste is specifically categorised by the United Nations Basel Convention in its Annex II. According to BIR, most right-minded people and governments agree that household or co-mingled packaging wastes should be treated for recycling or disposal purposes as close as possible to the point of collection, and not exported without specific government-to-government permission.
Only a few months ago, the European Parliament held its first reading of the revision of the decade-old waste shipment regulations. BIR supported certain amendments agreed by the Parliament to allow governments to prevent the export of such household wastes. These were: Amendment 81 allowing objections to shipments for recovery of mixed household waste; and Amendment 115 allowing objections to shipments destined for disposal because a member state ‘€˜wishes to exercise its right pursuant to Article 4(1) of the Basel Convention to prohibit the import of hazardous wastes, or of wastes listed in Annex II of the Basel Convention’€™. With this text heading for its second reading, BIR is calling on the European Parliament to continue to support these two amendments.