This article has been written by Diva Rai, a student of Symbiosis Law School, Noida.

What is Waste Trafficking?

Illegal exports of waste are known as trafficking in waste and, when engaged, have a significant adverse effect on sustainable resource management and effectiveness in recycling, as well as on the environment and human health. In addition, exporting waste for unhealthy and unacceptable therapy overseas rather than complying with the laws generates an uneven playing field that impairs sound market processes.

Developed and developing nations are becoming increasingly involved in waste trafficking. Some studies have already pointed out the effects of this type of activity on the environment, financial and social. Nevertheless, the nations that cross the obstacle between developing and advanced status are dealing with a significant problem.

Waste management is a demanding and difficult endeavor in all European nations, with significant consequences for human health and well-being, conservation of the environment, sustainability and economy. There are comprehensive legal frameworks that govern waste management, established primarily on the grounds of environmental criteria. Compliance with these regulations has resulted in important advancement; however, concerns stay about the potential health effects of waste circulation, management and disposal, particularly with regard to casual procedures and outdated techniques.

Introduction

Illegal exports of waste are known as waste trafficking and, as shown above, have a major adverse effect on sustainable resource management and effectiveness in recycling, as well as on the environment and human health. In addition, exporting waste for unhealthy and unacceptable therapy overseas rather than complying with the laws generates an uneven playing field that impairs sound market processes. Finally, unsuccessful waste handling will undoubtedly adversely affect the waste management sector’s reputation and credibility.

The implementation of waste trafficking is organizationally complicated and suffers from the absence of adequate information and the difficulty in determining whether a waste shipment is to be defined as illegal or not but it is very essential to discover methods to deal effectively with waste trafficking.

Handling puts recyclers and citizens residing near the locations at risk for their health. In addition, by contaminating land, water and ecosystems, incorrect handling also leads damage to people residing further away from the locations and the environment. In relation to the imminent threats to the environment and human health mentioned above, bad waste management, particularly the use of inadequate recycling and retrieval techniques, implies bad management of resources and the loss of precious resources, which will certainly add to the depletion of the natural resources of our planet.

In addition, exporting waste for unhealthy and unacceptable therapy overseas rather than complying with the laws generates an uneven playing field that impairs sound market processes. This provides an unfair economic advantage over soundly based and environmentally conscientious waste manufacturers and waste executives to irresponsible waste manufacturers and questionable waste brokers and processors. It is very probable that the skewed market processes will delay or hinder the establishment of equipment and infrastructure required for adequate solid waste management worldwide.

Impact

The worldwide recycling markets are helping to restore enormous amounts of products. However, recycling and restoration operations are carried out in most developing nations by low-end means such as crude recycling at relatively low returns in the backyard. Such treatment often leads severe damage to the environment, human health, society and the economy.

To avoid the undesirable impacts on the environment, human health and legislation has been introduced on a global as well as regional and national level. On a global level, the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements and Disposal of Hazardous Wastes (EU 1993) and the OECD Council Decision on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Waste Destined for Recovery Operations (OECD 1992) govern transboundary waste movements.

Exports of waste from the European Union are controlled by the Regulation on the Supervision and Control of Waste Shipments within, within and outside the European Community (259/93/EEC) (EU 1993a), often referred to as the ‘ European Waste Shipments Regulation, and regulations on the import and export of dangerous waste can be discovered in Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

A study by IMPEL (the European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law) proposed that up to 85% of non-hazardous waste imported from the European Union should be delivered illegally or in non-compliance with legislation. Irregularities include, but are not limited to, the use of inaccurate classification, false classification of waste products or unchecked items as reusable products, and other types of fraudulent declarations of delivery (IMPEL 2005).

Irregularities include, but are not limited to, the use of inaccurate classification, false classification of waste products or unchecked items as reusable products and other types of fraudulent declarations of delivery (IMPEL 2005).

In addition, Greenpeace (2010) revealed that 94 attempted or real instances of illegal exports of a total of 10 million tonnes of hazardous waste were recognized between 1988 and 1994, and Massari and Monzini (2004) reported illegal exports of hazardous waste from Italy to Romania, the Black Sea region, Lebanon and several African nations, including Somalia and Mozambique.

The organization of anti-waste trafficking enforcement measures differs extensively from nation to nation. Various administrative structures in different states can explain the differences to a large extent and thus vary competencies and jurisdictional scope for the organizations involved. However, it is generally possible to identify three kinds of organizations or officials engaged in enforcing transboundary waste shipments (IMPEL 2006). These are:

• Environmental Inspectorates, mostly organized within the Ministry of Environment
• Police Departments, mostly organized within the Ministry of Internal Affairs
• Customs, mostly organized within the Ministry of Finance.

The division of competencies and duties between these three kinds of organization varies from nation to nation. The primary responsibility for enforcement can be put in any of the organizational classifications and distinct agreements exist in distinct nations in practice. The degree of accountability sharing and effectiveness among skilled officials varies from nation to country (IMPEL 2006).

There are also variations in the degree of centralization. Some nations and authority forms are highly centralized, while others demonstrate a high degree of decentralization with significant independence and decision-making powers delegated to regional and local authorities. Cooperation between the concerned organizations, either on a case-by-case basis or through more official contracts such as memoranda of comprehension, takes place willingly in most nations.

Challenges

IMPEL reports (2005, 2006) highlight several obstacles to efficient enforcement of the laws.

Today, most enforcement operations are reactive in nature and depend on collaboration in a number of nations between environmental organizations, customs and police networks. Such collaboration still appears to be partially restricted in some of the organizations due to absence of priority, interest or ability. In addition, it is discovered that efficient data and intelligence collection, use and exchange are crucial for better and more efficient enforcement.

Because it requires transnational and cross-organizational collaboration, delivering the intelligence material required is an enormous challenge. All in all, it is necessary to involve a big amount of performers, most likely with distinct opinions of an intelligence organization, the use of intelligence material, secrecy and other problems linked to intelligence organizations. Finally, IMPEL (2006) recognized the absence of adequate coordination and resource allocation among various domestic officials as one of the primary bottlenecks for effective and efficient enforcement of the transboundary shipment of waste laws.

In relation to these organizational difficulties outlined in order to perform a successful inspection and to be able to conclude whether a certain shipment is illegal or not, inspectors must be able to determine whether: the shipped material must be categorized as a waste or as a product, a classification that is particularly difficult to achieve when it comes to distinguishing between end-of-life products.

The ISWA Position on Waste Trafficking

The International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) is an global non-profit organization operating in the public interest with the primary goal of promoting and developing professional waste management globally for a sustainable society and since the organization has no legislative or law enforcement authorities and its members are registered to contribute to the voluntary organization ISWA generated a waste trafficking position paper (ISWA 2011).

The position article indicated that ISWA views waste trafficking as a truly global criminal action that harms human health and the environment as well as society, both through the impacts directly linked to unsuccessful waste processing, but also by impairing sound market processes that hinder the establishment of the infrastructure required for sound waste management. Moreover, waste trafficking seriously damages the waste management sector’s reputation and credibility and hinders the growth of a worldwide network of resource management.

ISWA therefore considers the battle against waste trafficking to be essential and needs to be fully integrated as a main element in establishing a sound, worldwide resource and solid waste management system.

Measures to be taken

Ideally, the most efficient way to decrease the hazards associated with waste trafficking in the long term is to simultaneously decrease the likelihood of unsuccessful waste handling and guarantee financially and environmentally sound resource use in the recipient nations. To accomplish this, it is necessary to strengthen the environmental laws and enforcement capabilities in the receiving nations.

In addition, extra investments must be made in and growth of waste management infrastructure, primarily in the form of suitable treatment and recycling equipment, and know-how in the management of domestic waste.

However, such capacity construction is time consuming and as long as the infrastructure, laws and enforcement capacities in the recipient nations have not achieved the level that offers the means needed to ensure sound handling and treatment, responsibility for ensuring sound and eco friendly waste processing and for stopping waste trafficking must be laid down The effective strategy to this assignment is to follow two parallel lines of operations that are supposed to decrease the incidence and the impacts of waste trafficking operations concurrently.

It is thought that a vast majority of all waste manufacturers behave in good faith, but they are faced with complexity in determining what should be the most suitable way to fulfill their commitments. Criminals and criminal organizations are therefore willing to take benefit of this complexity and the absence of understanding or care of manufacturers. Furthermore, the complexity of the current legislation and regulations, as well as complex environmental and customs administrative processes, could lead to unintended illegal waste processing and export.

Finally, it can be difficult to differentiate between a severe waste handler or broker and a questionable one engaged in illegal operations for a waste producer. Knowledgeable and vigilant waste manufacturers with a strong knowledge of the legislation and administrative processes in place that require adequate handling of their waste and can readily differentiate between severe and questionable waste managers are less likely to put their waste in the hands of criminal organizations than less knowledgeable and knowledgeable manufacturers. Enabling waste manufacturers is therefore a significant step in decreasing the quantity of waste illegally exported by making it simpler to do the correct thing.

Despite the reality that nearly all waste manufacturers are acting in good faith, there are still deliberately involved criminals and criminal organizations engaged in and benefiting from operations linked to waste trafficking and waste trafficking. Basically, making it more difficult to do wrong is the same as making their work simpler for enforcement organizations.

Conclusion

It is obvious that there are possibilities as well as threats to worldwide trade and waste motion. If treated properly, it is possible to recover and reintroduce big quantities of precious secondary raw materials into industrial resource flows. If not, there may be risk to the environment and human health and the loss of precious assets. Since most OECD countries have the ability to manage their waste in a sustainable manner, the primary challenge is the waste that is either produced or exported to developing nations, where inadequate legislative and physical environmental infrastructure results in crude handling and low-yielding recycling processes.

Long-term hazards associated with waste handling in developing nations can be decreased by enhancing environmental regulations and enforcement capabilities as well as creating the infrastructure for physical waste management in these nations. Such procedures, however, take time. Meanwhile, the responsibility to secure worldwide sound and eco friendly exports of reusable products, secondary raw materials and other kinds of waste must be assigned to the exporting nations in collaboration with the appropriate global bodies.

The implementation of global legislation such as the Basel Convention and regional legislation such as the European Waste Shipments Regulation has already recognized such an obligation. Despite the laws in place, however, big quantities of waste are illegally exported to developing nations from OECD nations. Some of the violations may be clarified by unintentionally violating the law by waste transporters, but a big percentage of illegal exports are thought to be the consequence of deliberately and continually committed waste trafficking.

Since waste trafficking is a genuinely global problem, efficient preventive measures must be based on global collaboration, based on intelligence, cross-organizational and cross-functional collaboration. The good strategy to achieving this mission is to follow two parallel lines of operations that are supposed to decrease the incidence as well as the impacts of waste trafficking operations at the same moment: making it easy to do what is correct and making it difficult to do wrong at the same moment. Together with environmental agencies and law enforcement organizations, the waste management sector has a significant role to play in this process.

Finally, it is essential to identify once and for all that waste trafficking is a criminal action and that people and organizations engaged in the activity of waste trafficking are criminals and should therefore be treated as such.

Ideally, the deepest way to decrease the hazards associated with waste trafficking in the long term is to simultaneously decrease the likelihood of unsuitable waste handling and guarantee financially and environmentally sound use of resources in the recipient nations. Such capacity building, however, is time consuming and, in the meantime, the responsibility to ensure sound and eco friendly waste handling and to prevent waste trafficking must be placed on the exporting nations in cooperation with the appropriate global bodies.

The effective strategy to this assignment is to simultaneously follow two parallel lines of operations that are supposed to decrease the incidence as well as the impacts of waste trafficking operations; make it easier to do the correct thing while making it more difficult to do the wrong thing.