Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: International policies and schemes
- 1,400 representatives recently from around 180 countries has agreed on a new UN accord to regulate the export of plastic waste. This meeting was organized by the UN Environment Programme(UNEP) in Geneva.
- The Geneva meeting amended the 1989 Basel Convention on the control of hazardous wastes to include plastic waste in a legally-binding, globally-reaching framework for managing plastic waste.
Crucial highlights
- The new amendment would empower developing countries to refuse plastic waste dumping.
- For far too long developed countries like the US and Canada have been exporting their mixed toxic plastic wastes to developing Asian countries claiming it would be recycled in the receiving country.
- The Geneva meeting also undertook to eliminate two toxic chemical groups Dicofol and Perfluorooctanoic Acid plus related compounds.
- The latter has been used in a wide variety of industrial and domestic applications including non-stick cookware and food processing equipment, as well as carpets, paper and paints.
- The Basel Convention came into force in 1992.It intends to reduce transboundary movements of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries(LDCs) and ensure their safe disposal as closely as possible to the source of generation