Green Groups Want E-Waste Ban Law Before Basel Ratification

The U.S. must enact legislation banning e-waste exports to developing countries before ratifying the Basel Convention, environmental groups said. The Electronics TakeBack Coalition (ETBC) and the Basel Action Network (BAN) were reacting to a GAO report that urged the EPA to draw up a legislative proposal for Congress to ratify the Basel Convention, an international treaty that governs trade in toxic waste (GED Aug 12 p1). The CEA doesn’t have a position on U.S. ratification of the Basel Convention, said Walter Alcorn, CEA vice president of environmental affairs.

Ratifying the Basel Convention alone, as recommended by GAO, would not “stop U.S. e-waste exports to developing nations,” the groups said. Such a move “ironically would legalize that unscrupulous trade which is currently illegal under international law,” they said. The GAO does not mention the adoption of the Basel Ban Amendment, a separate agreement under the Basel Convention, that countries have to ratify to ban exports of hazardous waste to developing countries, the groups said. Sixty-nine countries have ratified the amendment, they said.

"If the U.S. ratifies the Basel Convention, without simultaneously ratifying the Basel Ban Amendment, exports that are currently illegal would become legal,” the environmental groups said. For this reason, ETBC and BAN “support legislation banning hazardous electronic waste as the first step, and after that is in place proceeding with ratifying the entire Basel package -- the Convention with the Ban Amendment,” the groups said.

The GAO has done a good job of studying the challenges posed by the patchwork of state e-waste laws, said CEA’s Alcorn. “It does a better job of identifying the challenges and problems with the status quo in the current patchwork trajectory than it does identifying solutions.” But given that “these are tough issues,” he’s not surprised, said Alcorn. The Information Technology Industry Council and the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries didn’t respond to requests for comment by our deadline. The Natural Resources Defense Council had no comments.