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1994-05-02
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<text>
<title>
Greenpeace Criticizes U.S. Waste Dumping in Asia
</title>
<article>
<hdr>
Foreign Broadcast Information Service, March 11, 1992
Hong Kong & Macao: Greenpeace Criticizes U.S. Waste 'Dumping'
</hdr>
<body>
<p>[By Kathy Griffin]
</p>
<p> [Text] Hong Kong is becoming a dumping ground for the United
States' rubbish, according to the environmental group,
Greenpeace.
</p>
<p> It said the U.S. exported more than half of its plastic
waste to Hong Kong for recycling. Greenpeace said the waste was
often too low-grade for U.S. recyclers or could not be recycled
at all, meaning the host country had to dispose of it.
</p>
<p> The recycling processes could also be hazardous to workers
and the environment, and traders were coming to Asia because of
community opposition to recycling plants in the U.S., it said.
</p>
<p> Last December alone there were 150 shipments of U.S. plastic
waste to the territory which were declared to the U.S. Customs
Department, totalling, 3,425 tonnes and accounting for 52
percent of all such exports.
</p>
<p> The Census and Statistics Department said that last year
Hong Kong imported 425,000 tonnes of plastic waste worth more
than $1.1 billion, and about half of it came from the U.S.
</p>
<p> The trade only recently came to light after the U.S.-based
branch of Greenpeace began investigating it in the wake of
several high-profile toxic waste shipments from the U.S. and
Europe to developing countries.
</p>
<p> Hong Kong's Environmental Protection Department (EPD) said
it only recently became aware of the problem after reviewing
trade statistics.
</p>
<p> Mr Dick Rootham of the EPD's solid waste group said the
department was looking into the trade, but hoped to introduce
controls later this year on all waste imports into Hong Kong.
</p>
<p> "Although we can control trade in waste, one of the
exceptions is when the material is re-used. (Waste for)
recycling is one thing we'll be including in amendments to the
Waste Disposal Ordinance," he said, although he could not say
what those controls would be.
</p>
<p> About half of the imported plastic waste, which includes
polyethylene, polystyrene, polyvinylchloride and other plastic
products, stays in Hong Kong and the rest is re-exported almost
entirely to China.
</p>
<p> Hong Kong also exports plastic waste generated here--about
207,000 tonnes last year--mostly to China.
</p>
<p> Ms Ann Leonard is investigating the trade on behalf of
Greenpeace's international waste trade project, and returned to
Washington last week after visiting recycling factories in Hong
Kong, China, the Philippines and Indonesia.
</p>
<p> "We're concerned about it because we don't want to add to
disposal problems in other countries and also because recycling
plastic is encouraging plastic production," she said.
</p>
<p> "It's duping the public because you can't bury plastic and
you can't burn it, and just because it's recycled doesn't mean
it's green or safe. The best thing to do is not to use so much
plastic."
</p>
<p> The factories used the scrap to make such things as toys,
shoe soles and rubber thongs, but in the process workers and
the environment were endangered.
</p>
<p> For instance, in an Indonesian factory Ms Leonard saw
children as young as six sorting through bags containing the
residue of what appeared to be pesticides, and ending up covered
in it. Pesticides can be toxic.
</p>
<p> The recycling process also emitted strong fumes and created
contaminated waste water, and hot melted plastic splashed out
of factory vats posing a danger to workers, she said.
</p>
<p> The trade also created waste disposal problems for host
countries. An Indonesian factory manager told her that up to 40
percent of the imported plastic was not suitable for recycling.
</p>
<p> The new directors of Friends of the Earth, Mr Peter Illig,
said recycling was an industrial process and inevitably created
emissions, and this had to be balanced against the benefit of
re-using waste.
</p>
<p> "China probably imports it because it creates jobs and
money. That's definitely one of the big motivating factors, but
you need to make sure there's a balance between economic gain
and environmental harm," he said.
</p>
<p> Ms Leonard said some Hong Kong operators recycled the
plastic in the territory but many were believed to have
re-located factories across the border to such places as
Shenzhen, Huizhou, and Nam Kong. They mostly used the territory
to store the waste en route to China.
</p>
<p> She was unable to pinpoint whether the imported plastic was
industrial or consumer waste, but samples from the region's
factories would be analysed in the U.S.
</p>
<p> Ms Leonard said 88 countries had banned waste imports,
including many in Africa and Latin America but none in Asia.
The Philippines claims to ban them, but U.S. shippers report
sending plastic waste there.
</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>