The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [155]
Fifty thousand dollars was only a fraction of the $600,000 estimated for the cleanup, but we nonetheless felt like celebrating. So we joined the party. Amazingly, no one kicked us out. We strolled around the ballroom, handing out flyers and explaining the situation to people who asked us about our big red badges. One gentleman from my hometown of Seattle was especially interested and asked us lots of questions. Shortly thereafter, the music stopped and the mayor took the stage, welcoming people and extolling the virtues of Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love. To our surprise, the guy from Seattle began yelling, “Bring the ash home!” We joined him and kept it up until the security guards made it known we had overstayed our welcome.
Through a series of complicated negotiations, a deal was finally reached to bring the ash back to the United States. On April 5, 2000, what was left of the ash was loaded onto a ship and removed from Gonaïves. Today there’s a big billboard in its place that reads “Toxic Dumping in Haiti: Never Again.”
No Away In Sight
After years of traveling around investigating international waste dumping and meeting the people whose communities had been dumped on, my conviction was unshakable. It is simply wrong for the world’s richest countries to dump hazardous waste on the world’s poorest ones. Period. I remember talking to a U.S. congressional representative who told me I should find a compromise position. Like what? It is OK to dump on adults, but not kids? Or on Asians, but not Africans? No way. If it is too hazardous for my child, it is too hazardous for any child, anywhere.
Outraged by international waste trade scandals around the world, many countries have signed on to a United Nations convention called the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. The Basel Convention was adopted on March 22, 1989, and went into force on May 5, 1992. In its first iteration, the convention regulated, rather than banned, waste exports from wealthy countries to poorer ones.122 Around the world, human rights activists, environmentalists, and representatives of developing countries (i.e., the targets of waste traffickers) condemned the convention for “legalizing toxic waste.” Fortunately, the treaty was updated with a provision banning waste exports from the worlds’ richest countries (primarily OECD members) to less wealthy ones (non-OECD countries), effective January 1, 1998.123 The United States is the only industrialized country in the world that hasn’t yet ratified the Basel Convention.
While Basel is a tremendous victory, the battle is not yet over. Some countries and business associations continue to argue for exemptions from the ban for certain waste streams. An NGO watchdog group, the Basel Action Network, monitors the Basel Convention and publishes a list of entities working to undermine the ban. Whole countries are on the list: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States, and so are a number of trade associations: the International Council on Mining and Metals, the International Chamber of Commerce, and the United Nations Center for Trade and Development. To get involved and keep waste from being dumped on unsuspecting communities worldwide, visit the Basel Action Network at www.ban.org.
And Then There’s Recycling
Recycling is amazing in its ability to stir people—some people