Monday, October 5, 2009

Trash travels gray channels

At a time when world attention focused on the fight against global warming, the news that in mid-September off the coast of Italy, found a boat that may contain radioactive waste did not get too much publicity. Humbly was accompanied by a story about the international company "Trafigura, which trades oil and that was ten days ago agreed to pay 46 million dollars compensation for the 30,000 inhabitants of Côte d'Ivoire which is located three years ago, poisoned by chemical waste. As a result, 15 people died and thousands more fell ill.

Before the December summit in Copenhagen is much talk about how rich countries should help poor people to submit to the consequences of climate change. At the same time, developed countries continue to hand out large sums they waste less developed.

Strict laws on the management of hazardous waste have pushed this a serious job in a gray zone.

By Francesca Fontija told mobster, who claims that in 1992. personally ordered that the ship nuclear waste from the flood of Norway 30 kilometers from the southwestern coast of Italy, the wreck was actually found, but the results of the investigation have not yet been reported.

At the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, which laps the coast of 22 countries on three continents, is perhaps even thirty ships with radioactive waste, "said Font," Espresso ".

The story of the Mafia ever interfered in the dirtiest job is not, however, is new and has already cost the lives of two people. Italian journalist Ilarija Alpi and her cameraman were killed 1994th in Somalia, officially the failed kidnapping attempt. New investigations to confirm the suspicion that they may be liquidated because they followed the trail of nuclear waste from Italy to Somalia.

Font claims that the cargo ship from Norway kalabrijska Mafia Ndrangeta received 100,000 euros. Norway is known for its strict laws in the field of environmental protection and ship nuclear waste can not just disappear unless someone has a high position "zažmurio in one eye, as" Guardian "columnist George Monbiot. Celebrities antiglobalists and eco-activist, Monbiot this case and extrajudicial settlement "Trafigure" seen as two new series of examples in the transfer of garbage in somebody else's backyard to large corporations preserve profits.

He recalls that the tsunami five years ago launched the coast of Somalia barrels with hospital waste from the West, which is reflected in the health of the local population.

According to data of the European Agency for Environmental Protection (EPA), the export of plastic, paper and metal waste from the EU udesetostručio is from 1995. to 2007. Illegal exports to China four times of cheap processing in the Netherlands in accordance with EU regulations, writes the New York Times.

American laws are looser. As we have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol, the United States while Bush was one of the few countries that have ratified neither the Basel Convention on hazardous waste management. A hundred containers with waste recycling day arrives in Hong Kong from the U.S. and Canada.

Developing countries, some types of waste are welcome as secondary raw materials, but only if you reach the legal channels and in usable condition. Summer is the British arrived in the communal trash Brazil, marked as "clean plastics for recycling. Consignment polluted dirty diapers and other household waste is returned back, and three people in connection with this case arrested.

Discarded computers, monitors, printers, consoles, and washing machines are a bunch of garbage that the fastest growing, and usually ends up in African countries such as Ghana, Egypt and Nigeria.

Components such as cathode tubes, batteries and cartridges contain harmful substances and must be care of appropriately. Because of the strict laws of the EU for processing electronic waste, from the expected seven million tons last year, the factory for recycling reached only three million tons. The rest is probably exported illegally.

Smugglers have proven ways of masking. Goods are exported under the label used, but even if it is to briefly prolong life, a great probability that it will eventually end up in a landfill in China or Nigeria, where children try to burn plastics and extracting copper and aluminum, and the way will inspire lead, cadmium, dioxin and other poisons, warn experts.

According to EU regulations, electronic goods can be exported only if it still works. How much they respect the investigation showed Sky television and newspaper "Independent". Completely useless TV, which was previously embedded devices for satellite tracking, arrived from the British center for recycling to the street market in Lagos.

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