Asia as world's cesspit

[Stephen E Philion <philion@xxxxxxxxxx>]

[from the World Bank's daily clipping service]

RICH NATIONS TREATING ASIA AS THE WORLD'S CESSPIT: GREENPEACE.
The world's rich nations are treating Asia as the cesspit of the industrialized
world by paying developing countries to take their toxic wastes, AFP reports
Greenpeace said today.  "Industrialized countries are spending money to dump
waste in less developed Asian countries, and to buy incinerators in those
countries to burn rich states' waste," Tara Buakamsri of Greenpeace Southeast
Asia is quoted as saying at a conference in Bangkok.  "We will no longer be the
cesspit for the industrialized world."

Tara said Japan was one of the world's largest producers of deadly toxins and
heavy metals, which are emitted into the air when burnt at incinerators or
dumped in poorly-regulated landfills.  And now it was stepping up its strategy
of offering southeast Asian states money to build incinerators to burn its
transferred waste.  "It is unacceptable that Japan, which has created an
environmental health disaster in its own backyard ... is pushing to export its
polluting machines."

Global organizations, including the World Bank and the ADB, are also
contributing to the hazardous waste control techniques by funding these
projects, Greenpeace said in a statement.

Noting that Bangkok's city administration has recently decided to buy
incinerators to burn up waste-its own as well as garbage shipped in from other
countries, Greenpeace said it had set up a regional anti-toxic dumping and
ecological protection organization called Waste Not Asia to curb rich states'
plans to move even more waste to the region.  Asia would no longer allow "a
toxic technology being dumped on us by some of the most polluted nations in the
world," Tara said.

Waste Not Asia will strive to replace toxic waste dumping and incineration with
recycling and more effective waste management, said Sasanka Dev, an Indian
environmental activist.  "We would like to put governments and the incinerator
industry on notice that we now have the ability, information and skills to
challenge their visionless designs," he said.