{"id":4652,"date":"2010-03-20T16:47:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-20T16:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portstrategy.nfdtesting.uk\/coastlink\/2010\/03\/20\/combating-illegal-waste-shipments\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T15:41:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:41:27","slug":"combating-illegal-waste-shipments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/2010\/03\/20\/combating-illegal-waste-shipments\/","title":{"rendered":"Combating illegal waste shipments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last <\/span> year, during the Naples Greenport 2009 conference and in a contribution to this journal3, we sketched the detrimental effects caused by illegal international shipments of hazardous and other waste. We made clear that responsible authorities<\/p>\n

\u2013 both on national and international levels<\/p>\n

\u2013 have to develop and implement effective policies to act <\/span>firmly against illicit operations and operators. Putting legislation in place is just the beginning \u2013 and often easier said than done. Checking compliance with the regulation and acting appropriately through enforcement in cases of non-compliance, is a necessary second step. This is not only relevant for the protection of the environment and human health, but also for assuring fair equal market opportunities for all players. Just to give an impression of the current magnitude of the issue: it is estimated that on average about one out of ten containers exported from European international seaports is related to waste. Most of these shipments are in no conflict with the regulations. However, one out of five to ten of them is exported while violating the applicable environmental rules. Assuming that these numbers are not essentially different on a global scale, and given the current annual worldwide loaded container traffic volume of some 150 Million TEU4, this would imply that each year approximately 1.5 million waste-loaded containers are shipped illegally. When one lines up these containers, the distance from Hamburg to Cape Town would be covered. The currently estimated market \u2018value\u2019 of illegal waste amounts to 10- 12 Billion USD5.<\/p>\n

As underlined in our previous contribution to this journal, government authorities cannot tackle and solve the problem alone. Involved stakeholders in the private sectors related to transnational transportation of cargo must also take their responsibility. Greening their businesses would be missing a full dimension if relevant market players would be indifferent as to the nature of commodities that they are moving around the globe. It will only be through concerted approaches from the public and private stakeholders, that the evil of illegal and harmful waste trafficking can be counteracted with more success. Therefore, it is appropriate to stimulate further thinking and dialogue towards more responsibility and cooperation of the shipment industry with respect to counteracting the transportation of environmentally detrimental and illicit cargo. To this end, a synopsis of initiatives taken by authorities and their networks is highlighted below. The challenge of both public bodies and the private sector is to build further on current approaches and initiatives and develop potential new ones in a collaborative spirit.<\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n

European initiatives<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Europe, the so-called Waste Shipment Regulation (WSR)6, which is the European implementation of the Basel Convention7, applies to all 27 member states. The WSR forbids the export of waste from the European Union to developing countries for disposal purposes and strictly regulates the export of recyclable waste, in particular by procedures of prior written notification and consent. For hazardous waste, export to developing countries for all purposes is forbidden. Basically, shipments that do not comply with the WSR, are illegal. In order to stimulate sound and univocal implementation and enforcement of EU environmental regulation, competent authorities work together in the European Network for Implementation of Environmental Law (IMPEL)8.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Specifically, with regard to issues of implementation and enforcement of the WSR, authorities have clustered cooperation in a platform called IMPEL-TFS (Transfrontier Shipment of waste)9. The platform represents a cluster of network activities to stimulate and facilitate effective and efficient international inspections and non-compliance responses of violations of the WSR in the European countries. Compliance checks of waste shipments in seaports, is one of the concrete activities to this end. Through this, IMPEL-TFS contributes to an improved and equal implementation of regulation at the European level. IMPEL-TFS pays special attention to waste shipments destined for countries in Asia and Africa. In a recent project interim-report10, it is indicated that<\/p>\n

<\/span>in 19% of inspected waste shipment, violations of the WSR requirements were detected of which 37% were illegal transports, 46% were administrative violations and 17% other violations. Most violations related to shipments of paper and cardboard, plastic, metal and electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) waste.<\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Each year approximately 1.5 million waste-loaded containers are shipped illegally<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

<\/span>International initiatives<\/strong><\/p>\n

The International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE)11 has recently launched the Seaport Environmental Security Network (SESN)12. SESN works to strengthen the enforcement capacity of both developed and developing countries to prevent illegal hazardous waste shipments through ports, and prevent dumping in the developing world. The network\u2019s specific goals are to raise awareness of the extent, nature, and impacts of the transnational illegal trade in hazardous wastes, to strengthen capacity to enforce domestic and international hazardous waste law, and to support domestic and international cooperation among enforcement authorities who have responsibilities in seaports. Among these authorities are not only environmental inspection bodies, but also port and harbour authorities, customs and police.<\/p>\n

SESN is currently working towards a broad coalition and concrete initiatives of stake holders to invest in improved awareness and capabilities for control and inspection of waste shipments, particularly also in developing countries at the receiving end of the shipments.<\/p>\n

<\/span>The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)13, together with World Customs Organisation (WCO) has launched the so-called Container Control Programme14. This programme intends to help governments, particularly in developing countries, to establish more effective controls to prevent illegal trade of drugs and other illicit streams, and hence protect legitimate trade flows . Collective capacity building and concrete interagency alliances are realized through so-called Joint Port Control Units, in which different enforcement authorities unite forces and share expertise, information and development. In collaboration with INECE, the plan is to include also environmental container-based crime \u2013 like trafficking of hazardous waste \u2013 into the programme.<\/p>\n

Under the guidance of World Custom Organization (WCO), early 2009 the global Demeter operation15 was executed. It aimed at facilitating custom authorities in detecting and seizing of illicit cross-border shipments of hazardous waste across Europe, Asia\/Pacific region and Africa. Demeter, as an international customs initiative, was run in close cooperation with environmental enforcement agencies, the IMPEL network, and the secretariat of the Basel Convention. Demeter was based on intensified risk-based profiling, information exchange and physical inspections. The operation resulted in 30,000 tonnes of illegal hazardous waste netted in 57 seizures. Authorities of 64 countries, active in 300 ports, participated in the project.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Interpol, the international police organization, has started a project to analyse and reveal the illegal criminal networks that are behind the shipments of large quantities of electronic waste, such as used computers and other equipment, to the developing world.<\/p>\n

\n

Other initiatives<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are several examples of bilateral cooperation between authorities of exporting and importing countries to deal with the issue of illegal waste shipments. Often such initiatives focus on matters like exchange of information on specific shipments and\/or development of capacity and specific expertise for control and inspection. Several European countries cooperate with countries in Asia (particularly China and India) and Africa (e.g. Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast).<\/p>\n

When one is following the recent developments, it can be noticed that there is a growing awareness of the importance of compliance and enforcement in countries at the receiving end of the waste streams. Although several Asian countries do want to receive recyclable waste as a source for secondary raw material, they are more and more concerned about the environmental and social harm caused by illegal hazardous waste shipments. As a consequence, there is a growing desire to cooperate with authorities of exporting countries to act against illegal waste shipments.<\/p>\n

\n

Ways towards a concerted approach<\/strong><\/p>\n

As stated before, governments, their agencies and international organizations alone cannot deal with the issue of illicit transboundary shipment of waste. It would be a major step forward if responsible players of the international shipping sector would (pro- )actively collaborate with competent authorities in the battle against illegal waste trade. Without excluding other stakeholders in the \u2018shipping industry\u2019, it is obvious that the shipping lines would be important in this respect, since it is ultimately through their vessels that illegal cargo is moved. Assuming that these companies regret this situation and would rather not be by any means associated with unlawful practices, cooperation with relevant authorities to counteract such practices would be a logical way forward. The ambition of the companies to develop a competitive edge towards total risk management, sustainable business approaches and a green image should also be a trigger to take responsibility in jointly counteracting illegal waste trafficking. Also, when properly designed, a voluntary compliance-oriented collaboration between authorities and companies might lead to a reduction of the administrative burden for the industry.<\/p>\n

It goes without saying that public and private parties have and should keep their own specific roles and obligations. At the same time, however, there is a joint responsibility and opportunity to counteract illegal waste shipments and the harm they constitute for human health, the environment, fair economic markets and sustainable development. Some ideas on how authorities and shipping lines could join their forces are summarized below. Thus far, a few of these have been explored on a smaller scale in some countries and with some companies rather successfully. The challenge would be to build on those in order to arrive at a broader international approach in the near future.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Since awareness is a precondition for any involvement, authorities, and (particularly) international organizations, could take responsibility to specifically brief the industry on the issue of international waste shipments, the associated legislation and approaches to detect and counteract illegal operations.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Shipping companies could actively share (data from) their ship manifests on a regular basis with authorities for purposes of analysis and intelligence.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Authorities often work on the basis of risk analysis and profi ling. Based on aspects as sender, recipient, description\/coding of cargo, routing and destination, certain shipments are flagged with a higher risk of possible illegal nature. Sharing these risk profiles with the shipping lines, could help them to identify bookings of such potential problematic shipments and trigger them to inform the relevant authorities.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Shipping lines could be informed about the general \u2018modus operandi\u2019 of individuals and enterprises which associate themselves with illicit operations. This could assist them to be attentive of such phenomena and inform authorities subsequently.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Authorities, international organizations and shipping lines could agree to organize a strategic international stakeholders meeting<\/em>, later this year, in order to mutually inform each other on ongoing activities, and to discuss concrete options for future cooperation and joint efforts in the fight against illegal transnational waste shipments. IMPEL and INECE, as international networks for environmental compliance and enforcement, are prepared to take initiative now, and are willing to organize an international stakeholders meeting<\/em>. The networks invite (representatives of) the shipping companies and other relevant stakeholders to collaborate with them to make such meeting a success. The authors hope this proposition will stimulate all to jump on the band-wagon to make a start with the so barely needed concerted approach towards stopping and preventing the detrimental illegal waste shipments.<\/p>\n

\n

\n

1 Programme for International Environmental Enforcement Cooperation, Ministry of Environment, The Netherlands. Focal point for the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement (INECE) 2 Programme for International Environmental Enforcement Cooperation, Ministry of Environment, The Netherlands – Programme Director. Co-Chair of INECE Executive Planning Committee. Chair of the Board of The European Union Network for the Implementation and Enforcement of Environmental Law (IMPEL) 3 GreenPort Journal, May\/June 2009, p. 52-54 4 Review of Maritime Transport 2009 \u2013 UNCTAD (2009) 5 The International Crime Threat Assessment. Environment and Natural Resources Division, United States Justice Department (2000). 6 Regulation (EC) No 1013\/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 June 2006 on shipments of waste 7 (Basel) Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal For information on and text of the Basel Convention, see: http:\/\/www.basel.int 8 IMPEL Website: http:\/\/ec.europa.eu\/environment\/impel\/ 9 IMPEL TFS Website: http:\/\/www.impeltfs.eu 10 see: http:\/\/impeltfs.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/05\/Interim-Report-IMPEL-TFS-EA-II-fi nal-word.pdf 11 INECE Website: http:\/\/www.inece.org 12 INECE Seaport Website: http:\/\/www.inece.org\/seaport 13 UNODC Website: http:\/\/www.unodc.org 14 for more information, see: http:\/\/ http:\/\/www.unodc.org\/documents\/organized-crime\/generalbrochureEN.pdf 15 for press release on Demeter, see: http:\/\/www.wcoomd.org\/press\/default.aspx?lid=1&id=187<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is time for concerted public and private approaches to combat the illegal shipment of waste through international seaports. B.H. Ruessink1 and G.J.R. Wolters2 review the situation \u2013 and make a call for action<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":4653,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-4652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects-initiatives-greenport"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4654,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4652\/revisions\/4654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4652"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=4652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}