Climate Change and Toxic Waste
How can we safely dispose of human-generated waste without further ecological harm?
World leaders have convened for pivotal talks at the World Climate Change Summit in Paris, which is calling on delegates from over 190 countries to establish legally binding agreements to curb carbon emissions drastically and reduce harmful effects on the environment.
As salient as these talks are, it is important to acknowledge that some of the most destructive practices currently degrading our climate will go unaddressed due to their inherent political sensitivity. An example of such a practice is the widely-documented, yet seldom discussed issue of illegal toxic waste dumping, of which several nations are inexplicably guilty.
Earlier this year, Europe’s largest illegal toxic waste dump was reported by The Independent, a dumping ground which spanned over 60 acres. In a series of appalling discoveries in Southern Italy, it was estimated that 10billion tonnes of dangerous waste products had been buried since the 1990’s. Medical and industrial waste among other noxious materials were irresponsibly concealed underground near densely populated areas, of course without the knowledge of residents. The site was so large that is was excavated over the course of several days by authorities with the utilisation of bulldozers. In a telling sign of the affect this has on the general populace, the region of Italy affected also correlates with higher levels of diseases, such as a cancer rate 80% higher than the national average. Previous investigations additionally revealed that ships loaded with toxic and radioactive waste were sunk off the Italian coast in an attempt to dispose of unsafe materials with minimal costs and blatant disregard to marine life.
The dumping was linked to the Italian criminal gang ‘Ndrangheta’, who allegedly have been involved in such activities for over thirty years, not just confined to Italy. Other criminal gangs such as the Yakuza in Japan have been linked to the practice. Police raids of the largest Yakuza syndicate, Yamaguci-gumi, in August indicated the gang were culpable for the illegal dumping of hydrofluoric acid, a liquid poison, which was disposed of by a local firm who had a contract with the gang. This was revealed after 14 workers at a Japanese water plant became ill due to contact with the waste.
However in a surprisingly lucrative business, vessels full of waste are also routinely sent to volatile developing countries where it is illegally disposed of in exchange for large sums of money. European firms have often been accused of paying Italian intermediaries to dispose of hazardous materials, who then bargain with proxies in places in Somalia who get rid of the waste at a fraction of the cost of official channels. A joint report by Greenpeace and Amnesty International scrupulously details the human rights abuses and a general sense of apathy on behest of governments to curtail the practice.
In the case of Somalia, illegal dumping has been rampant for nearly 25 years, but due to a lack of political stability perpetrators are rarely held accountable for the dangers posed to the communities living along the 3,300km coastline. Despite several damning reports compiled by NGO’s and even a 2005 investigation by the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) that identified dumping sites and leaking barrels of waste, little action has been taken. Mass deaths of fish, local accounts of sudden deaths, skin rashes, a sharp increase in respiratory diseases and birth defects all coincide with exposure to toxic materials. The illicit dumping of materials destroying many fishing grounds has also been cited as one of the root causes of infamous Somali piracy. It has been documented that a vast number of the ‘pirates’ are armed fishermen or gangs who are attempting to ward off ships that they perceive as polluters of the coastlines and inimical to their economic security.
Timothy Walker in a report for the Institute for Security Studies notes the concern of groups such as the Maritime and Coastal Security Africa (MCSA) who frequently acknowledge there is a “clear and lamentable dearth of knowledge in regards to the dumping, and trade, of hazardous waste in Africa”. Interest in the issue was briefly reinvigorated in 2004 when the Boxing Day tsunami washed ashore several barrels of oozing waste, thought to be nuclear waste, including uranium, chemical products and lead.
Not only restricted to Somalia, a Dutch firm, Trafigura Beheer BV was brought to court by residents of the Ivory Coast for violating international practice in terms of waste dumping. Causing a health crisis in 2006, waste was dispersed across as many as 12 different sites on the Ivory Coast after the ship carrying it was initially denied entry at Amsterdam. The combination of chemicals buried produced a gas that was directly linked to the death of 17 and injuries of over 30,000 Ivorian’s, with symptoms ranging from headaches to burned lungs. Ultimately in 2009, a court case brought by residents against the company culminated in Trafigura announcing it would pay more than $46 million to claimants. While no doubt it is a positive precedent that a company was found liable, it is virtually unheard of across other regions to be reimbursed for damages.
Despite the implementation of the Basel Convention on Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal that stipulates each country is responsible for the removal of their respective medical, industrial and radioactive waste, but also its retrieval if it is illegally disposed of, the negligent discarding of both radioactive and toxic materials is rarely addressed at a governmental level.
International co-operation and more nuanced legislation is needed to prevent the unremitting illegal dumping. Not only is it harmful to the environment but also poses a great risk to human health. In the context of the World Climate Change Summit, it is important that greenhouse gas emissions are limited and the over-reliance on fossil fuels conceded, but it is not enough to discuss what seem like the most flagrant drivers of climate change. Quandaries such as reckless dumping exist on a large scale, and irrefutably pose discernible environmental risks such as bio-diversity loss, aesthetic degradation and soil contamination amongst a copious amount of other detrimental ecological effects.
