Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Basel Convention and UAE

In the recent times the environment protection is a buzzword here in UAE and government is drafting stringent laws to protect the environment.

UAE signed the Basel Convention* in November 1992 and established a legislation called ‘Regulation for Handling Hazardous Materials, Hazardous Wastes and Medical Waste (Law 24 of 1999)’. Article 12 of the law states ‘Transportation and disposal of locally produced hazardous waste through land borders, marine environment limit and air space shall be controlled in accordance with the rules, procedure and controls mentioned and specified in Basel Agreement and in coordination with Federal Environmental Agency’.

UAE is not yet a signatory to Basel BAN amendments of Sep 1995 thus there is no mention of the Basel BAN amendments in the current federal legislation.

At emirates level various legislation were passed to organise the waste management sector in each emirates. Abu Dhabi passed the Law 21 of 2005 concerning Waste Management in emirate of Abu Dhabi. The clauses listed below are related to transportation of hazardous waste, which permits the Centre of Waste Management (CWM which is the Competent Authority) to monitor and manage the transportation of hazardous waste.

Chapter 4 – Responsibilities of Waste Generator
Article 5.6.c ‘Medical or Hazardous waste must not be delivered to any party interested in contracting unless such parties specify the means that they shall apply on such waste and provide the approval of the competent authority’

Chapter 5 – Responsibilities of Storage, Treatment and Disposal Facilities
Article 6.3 ‘Storage, treatment and/or disposal facilities must not receive any hazardous waste shipments except after obtaining the approval of the competent authority on the sites and methods to be used’

Article 6.4 ‘The Competent authority may issue an annual approval for the disposal of recurrent shipments of the same kind of hazardous waste through regulations laid down for such purpose’

Shipment of such waste coming into UAE has been well monitored and controlled. In recent past only a single incident of mixed plastic waste was reported in media. The waste was imported through Dubai ports to be treated at a facility in Ajman (another Emirate in UAE). The Dubai government objected to import and the issue was raised at Environment Agency-UK. As a result, the transporting company was fined about GBP 75,000.

Major waste stream of hazardous waste in UAE are Petrochemical waste, Medical Waste, e-Waste and nuclear waste will join the list soon. To avoid hazardous waste export the cash rich government owned petrochemical companies have established centralised treatment facility. CWM has established treatment facilities for Medical Waste Incineration, Engine Oil treatment, Tyre Shredding through PPP model.

Government is encouraging private companies for e-waste recycling. A few major electronic distributors have established collection centres and they transfer the waste to established facilities. However, good fraction e-waste is still collected in an unorganised manner and exported to South and South-East Asian countries. The exports of such substance are not widely reported.

Unlike my home country India and majority of the third world countries, UAE has efficient law enforcement machinery. Thus after the establishment of CWM in 2008, there has been significant improvement in waste management in general and hazardous waste transportation in particular. Further impetus is required by the government to invest into the better treatment/storage facilities for e-waste, nuclear waste and other such waste. The legislations shall also be made more illustrative to check the aberrations regarding trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste.

References

*The Basel Convention is an UNEP convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal is the most comprehensive global environmental agreement on hazardous and other wastes. The Convention has 175 Parties and aims to protect human health and the environment against the adverse effects resulting from the generation, management, transboundary movements and disposal of hazardous and other wastes. The Basel Convention came into force in 1992. 
Click here to know more about Basel Convention

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