A dozen environmental advocacy organisations have come together to criticise the European Union for not applying controls on the export of plastic waste to trade between its own member states.
Last week, the European Commission announced it was to prohibit the export of hazardous and hard-to-recycle plastic waste from the EU to non-OECD countries from 1 January 2021. But, these trade controls will not apply between EU member states, the organisations say.
The EU is to prohibit the export of hazardous and hard-to-recycle plastic waste from the EU to non-OECD countries from 1 January 2021
In a statement released yesterday (7 July), the campaigning organisations said: “This would leave the door wide open for EU waste traders to shunt difficult-to-recycle plastics to substandard operations in poorer EU communities, as well as plastic waste to ‘waste-to-energy’ incinerators in other EU countries.
“Incinerating plastic waste undermines recycling, and has dire consequences for the climate, for the environment, and for a toxic-free and just circular economy.”
Signatories to the statement include Basel Action Network (BAN), Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), Greenpeace, Zero Waste Europe (ZWE), Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) and Rethink Plastic, amongst others.
British Members of ZWE include UKWIN, an anti-incineration campaign group.
Special consideration
Amendments to the Basel Convention, an international treaty covering the transboundary movement of hazardous waste, were first proposed in December 2018 (see letsrecycle.com story).
“How is the rest of the world going to take the EU seriously?”
As confirmed last week, wastes listed under Annex II of the Basel Convention as “requiring special consideration” will now require prior consent by the nations outside the EU who import them.
In May 2019, representatives of Europe’s waste industry claimed the proposed changes would ‘massively harm’ the global trade in plastic for recycling (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, the signatories to today’s statement do not believe the amendments go far enough.
Jim Puckett is the executive director and founder of BAN, an American charitable organisation which aims to combat the export of hazardous waste. He said: “How does bending current EU rules and creating double standards for the EU demonstrate any kind of global leadership?
“How is the rest of the world going to take the EU seriously when they preach boldly on the global stage and then run back home to coddle their waste and plastics industries?”
‘Victims’
The environmental groups say excepting EU member states from the proposed legislation is unjustified given the ‘persistent trend’ of wastes moving across the continent to ‘victimise’ weaker communities.
Some of the waste which may have been exported illegally from the UK to Latvia
It cites recent reports of plastic waste being dumped and burned in Poland, Italy and Romania.
In June, the Environment Agency said it was working with its counterpart in Latvia on an investigation into possible illegal waste exports from the UK (see letsrecycle.com story). In February, Poland said it was to return more than 220 tonnes of ‘illegally exported’ waste found in a warehouse to the UK (see letsrecycle.com story).
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Source: letsrecycle.com Plastic
