Chemistry
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Bibliography
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E-Waste Sorting [Digital image]. (n.d.). Retrieved May 17, 2014, from http://www.step-initiative.org/tl_files/step/_bilder/ewaste02.jpg
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Made for Mr. Jones' Grade 12 Chemistry course (SCH 4U), June 5th, 2014
Basel Convention
The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, more well known as the Basel Convention, is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between countires, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries.
With the tightening of environmental laws in developed nations in the 1970s, disposal costs for hazardous waste rose dramatically.
At the same time, globalization of shipping made transboundary movement of waste more accessible, and many developping countires were desperate for foreign currency. Consequently, the trade in hazardous waste, particularly to developping countries, grew rapidly.
One of the incidents which led to the creation of the Basel Convention was the Khian Sea waste disposal incident, in which a ship carrying incinerator ash from the city of Philadelphia in the United States dumped half of its load on a beach in Haiti before being forced away. It sailed for many months, changing its name several times. Unable to unload the cargo in any port, the crew was believed to have dumped much of it at sea.
According to Maureen Walsh, only around 4% of hazardous wastes that come from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries are actually shipped across international borders. These wastes includes, among others, chemical waste, radioactive waste, municipal solid waste, asbestos, incinerator ash, and old tires. Of internationally shipped waste that comes from developed countries, more than half is shipped for recovery and the remainder for final disposal.
Increased trade in recyclable materials has led to an increase in a market for used products such as computers. This market is valued in billions of dollars.
As of 2014, there are 181 parties to the treaty. The UN member states that are not party to the treaty are Angola, Burma, East Timor, Fiji, Grenada, Haiti, San Marino, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Tuvalu, United States, and Vanuatu