18/01/2007
Source: One World South Asia

Environmental, human rights and occupational health workers from 14 countries such as China, South Korea, Philippines, Cambodia, India, Nepal and others at the fifth Waste Not Asia (WNA) conference at Trivandrum, Kerala have called for adoption of Integrated Zero Waste Management instead of polluting technologies like incinerators.

India is a stark example of failure of such projects, which are now being pushed by vested interests to claim carbon credits despite the fact that it violates Kyoto Protocol and causes global warming. It condemned the trans-boundary movement of wastes in general and hazardous waste in particular. The issue of dumping of obsolete ships such as Le Clemenceau and Blue Lady also found mention in the deliberations.

WNA called upon the Asian governments to open all decisions on waste management to full public participation and transparency at every stage of the process; ensure waste solutions are democratically decided and socially just; provide avoided disposal costs to communities and businesses which divert recyclable and compostable materials from landfills; end hidden subsidies for landfills and incinerators; prioritise waste reduction at source, clean production, pollution prevention and sustainable material use; phase-out unsustainable materials such as PVC and other chlorinated compounds; support the demand for elimination of POPs in the ongoing treaty negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme; track the elimination of POPs by determining levels of dioxins and furans and other chemicals in the food chain and in mothers' breast milk on a regular basis.

The conference reiterated their allegiance to the WNA vision, which was adopted at its inception. Waste Not Asia (WNA) is a coalition of citizens' groups and individuals from Asia and the Pacific who support a commitment to a decentralized community-based reuse, recycling and composting programmes that promote materials recovery rather than materials destruction; opposing waste landfills, incinerators and other end-of-pipe interventions; ensure that manufacturers are held responsible for designing products and packaging that are ecologically sound through every stage of their life cycle; eliminate persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and move towards a toxic free future; reduce generation of waste, promote clean production, and move towards a zero waste society.

The delegates argued that incinerator is an industrial furnace in which valuable resources were needlessly burned, creating toxic gases and ash. They called upon the communities to work towards ending this insane practice.

The increasing consumption in Asia is resulting in growing mountains of garbage and other wastes which are sought to be disposed in landfills or burnt openly or in incinerators.

Asia is under siege from multinational corporations, international financial institutions, aid agencies and governments who seek to push material disposal and destruction technologies such as landfills and incinerators. Many countries are running out of both physical and political space to site new landfills.

Although burning waste, with or without the recovery of energy, puts dangerous substances such as toxic metals, dioxins, furans, and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), into the air and into the residual ash and the United Nations Environment Programme has identified dioxins, furans and PCBs as persistent organic pollutants requiring priority global action, the practice continues to find favour from policy makers.

The poor economic and environmental track record of incinerators and landfills in industrialised and developing countries has led to intense public opposition to such technologies. Many incinerator and landfill proposals have been linked to corruption scandals and undemocratic decision-making processes.

The disposal and destruction of materials robs future generations of resources, drains local communities of finances and resources, thwarts local economic development and undermines rational approaches to waste management, and concentrate economic benefits in the hands of a few corporations.

A large informal sector in many Asian countries already exists that provides invaluable service by recovery and recycling. Incinerators, landfills and other ‘end-of-pipe’ solutions endanger the progressive and superior alternatives that are being pioneered in communities and municipalities around Asia and detract from initiatives to reduce waste and toxics in manufacturing. The over-reliance on ‘end-of-pipe’ solutions encourages exploitation via the export of wastes and dirty technologies.

The production and use of unsustainable materials such as PVC has led to the poisoning of human health and the environment. The presence of dioxins, furans and other chemicals in breast milk and human bodies is a form of chemical trespass that threaten the well-being of particularly vulnerable populations namely fetuses and infants. This chemical trespass violates women's fundamental rights to bear healthy children and to breast feed.

In the light of the above the conference demanded that that multilateral, bilateral and private aid and lending institutions including Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA), USAID, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank: end funding for materials destruction methods, including incineration and related disposal technologies; cease providing secretive, distorted and biased prescriptions on waste management to governments.

The UN and affiliated bodies should condemn and end the promotion of incinerators and other materials destruction technologies. And the concerned governments should ban new incinerators and phase-out existing ones; promote materials recovery rather than materials destruction; support local initiatives, which benefit communities rather than corporations.

The conference, which started on January 15, concluded its deliberations on January 18, 2007 at Mascot Hotel in Trivendrum, Kerala, India.

Similar WNA meetings have earlier been held at Bangkok, Thailand in 2000, Taipei, Taiwan in 2001 and in Penang, Malaysia in 2003.

During the GAIA Global Meeting in Seoul, South Korea in 2004, the WNA has evolved as GAIA's regional platform in Asia. Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) was formed in the year 2000 with a Secretariat in the Philippines with 360 members in 66 countries. The WNA has evolved as GAIA's regional platform in Asia.