Indonesia to Report Countries Refusing to Accept Returned Waste

Indonesia’s environment ministry announced that it will report countries that refuse to accept the waste shipments returned to them from Indonesian authorities.

Indonesia said it would report countries to the Basel Convention, an international treaty that controls the movement of hazardous waste between countries, according to a KFGO/Reuters report. The report also notes that comments come after a report by green groups Nexus3 and Basel Action Network (BAN) said that waste Indonesia sent back to the U.S. had ended up mostly in other Asian emerging economies.

Nexus3 and BAN said they found evidence that out of 58 containers due to be returned to the United States, only 12 had made their way back, while 38 had gone instead in India. The rest were found in South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, the Netherlands and Canada, according to the report.

A provision on returning imported hazardous waste to their countries of origin is stipulated in the Basel Convention. Indonesia is among the countries that ratified the convention.

KFGO has more:

Indonesia's environment ministry said on Thursday it would report countries to the Basel Convention, an international treaty on waste reduction, if they refused to accept waste shipments sent back to them by its authorities.

The comments come after a report by green groups Nexus3 and Basel Action Network (BAN) said that waste Indonesia sent back to the United States had ended up mostly in other Asian emerging economies.

"If the origin country refuses to accept, we will report this to the Basel Convention," Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, director general of waste management at Indonesia's environment ministry, told a news conference.

Read the full article here.