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31.08.2009 Business

The United Kingdom and the trade in waste (1)

31.08.2009 LISTEN
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THE UNITED Kingdom, also known as Great Britain, and derogatorily referred to as “Perfidious Albion”, has always put out favourable propaganda about itself as a peace-loving, liberal, democratic and highly moral country, where citizens and non-citizens alike enjoy maximum freedom.

However, Jonathan Blake, a character in Terence Strong's book, THE FIFTH HOSTAGE, invites you to look at Britain differently. Blake says, “Don't believe all the propaganda the British put out about themselves. The Establishment (the Government and its agencies) is as ruthless as anything in the world. And a damn sight more cunning than most. That's how they survive. They've been at it since medieval times.” (p. 228).

It has not come as a surprise to me that Britain has been implicated in the highly immoral trade in nuclear, electronic and other hazardous waste. In the latest report by THE TIMES of London, the British Government has been seriously implicated in the exportation of electronic waste to Ghana, notably discarded computers.

Toxic household and industrial waste also exported from Britain to Brazil included discarded syringes, condoms, nappies, bags of blood, etc. A container full of dirty toys had a note in Portuguese saying the toys should be washed before being given to “poor Brazilian children.” According to the report, Madam Ingrid Oberg, an official of Brazil's environmental agency known as Ibama, said, “Whoever put this rubbish into the containers in the UK, knew what they were doing and where they were going, so it is a criminal act. England needs to assume responsibility.” Ibama's President, Mr. Roberto Messias, reportedly said, “We will ask for the repatriation of this garbage. Clearly, Brazil is not a big rubbish dump of the world.”

The two British companies linked with 90 shipping containers that contained 1,400 tonnes of waste, are the innocuously named Worldwide Biocyclables Ltd. and UK Multiples Recycling Ltd. Ibama is considering taking action against the two companies. Will Ibama succeed?

In the particular case of Ghana, THE TIMES of London report stated empathically that “the dangerous trade in obsolete electronic products is being encouraged in part by Britain.” (See the DAILY GRAPHIC-Tuesday, July 21, 2009.)

The GRAPHIC News Desk Report which referred to THE TIMES of London exposé says that the London newspaper had reportedly seen computers that had once been used in the offices of the British Ministry of Defence, and workers at the Agbogbloshie Market had also stated that they had seen labels on the back of discarded personal computers (PCs) from several British companies.

When questioned, a British Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said that the obsolete computers had been sent to its Disposal Services Authority, which passed them on to Sims, one of its IT contractors.

The computers, identified in Ghana by its tag T849, had been sold to a British company for re-use. Then came the chillingly immoral answer by the spokeswoman, “Where it (the computer) goes, once it's in their hands, is nothing to do with us.”

We are dealing with a very serious problem. As the report states, electronic waste is a vast and growing market, put by some estimates at 50 million tonnes a year. Much of it is reportedly dumped in Ghana and Nigeria, where, without proper regulation or health controls, pieces can be extracted and recycled by unemployed youth.

The GRAPHIC has two pictures to accompany its News Desk report, one showing two children at the Agbogbloshie Market dump site, and the other depicting cords being burnt to release copper from its rubber casing.

The blazing fire is described as releasing toxins into the air. Where lies the danger?

First, we are told that one is hit by an overpowering smell, as a blend of burning rubber and chemicals clogs the nostrils and stings the eyes and hangs at the back of the throat.

Secondly, the burning, we are told, releases dangerous chemicals such as phthalates, which are known to damage sexual reproductive faculties, and cadmium and antimony, which have been found to contain chlorinated dioxins that cause cancers.

Thirdly, after the burning, what is discarded reportedly “seep into the earth, affect the water table and even enter the food chain,” according to Mr. Kim Schoppink of Greenpeace.

He illustrates his statement with the fact that two nearby rivers that had fish in them were now dead.

How does the electronic waste elude the vigilant eyes of Customs and other officials? Mr. Mike Anane, a Ghanaian journalist, is reported as saying that the computers and other equipment containing the dangerous chemicals are shipped under the falsified label of second-hand goods that are re-usable.

The brutal insensitivity of the spokeswoman of the British Ministry of Defence does not surprise me. Africa was forced to become a dumping ground for waste and cheap goods of all kinds many years ago.

In his article entitled WASTE AND RUMOURS OF WASTE, the Nigerian journalist, Mr. Adewale Maja-Pierce, quoted another merchant of death, Charles Deck, owner of Redell Development, a waste company, as saying unfeelingly, “If anything happens to the Africans because of the waste, that's too bad.” To Maja-Pearce, that statement was “a chilling formulation of one such merchant.” (See the INDEX ON CENSORSHIP, July/August 1989 issue-Volume 18, Nos. 6 & 7).

Only last year, a ship connected with The Netherlands dumped fatally toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.

A number of people died, while many fell dangerously sick. Once more, the merchants of death spoke and behaved as if nothing bad had happened. The same issue of the magazine tells the story of how Mr. Sigmund Stromme, the then Norwegian Consul-General who was also a managing director of a company called Guinomar (in Conakry, Guinea), forged an import licence to enable the company import waste in mid 1988.

The article by Maja-Pierce also recounts how the West exported waste to the Republic of Benin at only US$2.50 (Two United States dollars, fifty cents) per tonne, under an agreement signed on January 12, 1988.

Maja-Pierce was not only concerned about the export of waste to Benin, but also about the fact that Benin deserved about US$3,000 (Three thousand American dollars) per tonne. In short, Benin had been undervalued by corrupt government officials.

Benin was not the only African country that had signed a waste disposal agreement with some Western countries.

There were about seven others suspected to have entered into similar agreements. As Maja-Pierce observed, “The continent is at the mercy of the American dollar.”

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