The COVID-19 pandemic has already had negative effects on waste management, significantly contributing to increases in medical waste and household waste, and a substantial slowdown in recycling efforts. This upsurge in hazardous waste particularly endangers developing countries that are destinations for waste exports via the global waste trade.
While governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have individually taken action to address incidents of illegal waste shipments from affluent and more developed countries, the 10-member bloc has yet to unify and boost up efforts to protect the region from the drawbacks and hazards of the global waste trade.
Released in time for the commemoration of the ASEAN Month, the report titled “Waste Trade in Southeast Asia: Legal Justifications for Regional Action” notes the lack of a common and regional response to the waste trade issue despite headline-grabbing dumping controversies that hit Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand in recent years.
Published by the environmental health and justice group EcoWaste Coalition with the International Pollutants Elimination Network (IPEN), the report finds the current legal and policy responses inadequate to stop the entry of illegal waste, and more importantly, insufficient to protect the health of both people and the environment.
IPEN and "Eco-Accord" present the next issue of the EECCA regional newsletter. IPEN members from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Ukraine share the outcomes of their work.
Orange bags filled with plastic waste in Boise. A recycling effort to turn this garbage into diesel fuel failed. It is now burned in a cement plant. REUTERS/Brian Losness
Chemicals in plastics have a variety of health consequences, and none more startling than the potential impacts on human fertility. In the same way that plastic additives and fire-retardant chemicals can disrupt endocrine function in kidneys or the pancreas — even at very low doses — they can have effects on ovaries and testes and the entire reproductive system. Studies show that fertiility has decreased over the past few decades, and work by researchers has linked some of these declines with the effects of ubiquitous toxic chemicals that have gone unregulated or that have persisted in the environment.
In July 2021, IPEN and Commonweal's Biomonitoring Resource Center hosted a webinar with two leaders in this research, Dr. Shanna Swan, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and Dr. Pete Myers, Founder and Chief Scientist at Environmental Health Sciences. Dr. Swan's recent book "Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race" delves into the causes and issues surrounding this disturbing trend. In the webinar, she reviewed the findings from her book and outlined the issues we face in dealing with harms to human health. In his presentation, Dr. Myers detailed many of the issues faced in terms of threats to fertility, but also to other human and wildlife disease, such as the faulty regulatory thresholds currently in use by governments, which fail to account for non-monotonic effects at very low doses often seen with endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), the specific mechanisms of chemicals within cells, and the trans-generational impacts rarely discussed in popular media, brought about by epigenetic effects of chemicals and their metabolic by-products.
A Case Study of Muoroto Slum in Mombasa, Kenya, by Eco Ethics Kenya provides a valuable insight into the management of plastic waste and its adverse impacts on the environment and health of those vulnerable communities, especially artisanal recyclers, who carry a disproportionate burden. This case study underpins the recommendations made by Eco Ethics Kenya for urgent action to protect the informal waste sector through better training, support and worker safety protections.
The Caribbean Poison Information Network (CARPIN) reveals in this telling report on Highly Hazardous Pesticides in Jamaica that HHPs account for 32% of the registered active ingredients in the country. Other countries have banned 66 pesticide active ingredients registered in Jamaica, including three pesticides not approved in the European Union.
Jeunes Volontaires pour l’Environnement has identified 14 facilities in Cameroon that currently handle plastic waste and have the potential to impact human health, especially waste workers, and Cameroon's sensitive environment. This national report seeks to provide information and support to consumers, manufacturers, distributers, regulatory authorities and the media about the inherent risks, hazards and associated impacts of plastic waste.
Over 27% of pesticides approved in Togo are highly hazardous pesticides (HHPs). Eight (8) of these highly toxic pesticides were registered by the National Committee of Plant Protection Products of Togo and are commonly used in the country even though they are formally banned in Europe and other countries of the world. Find out more in this national report on HHPs and alternatives in Togo from the Organization for the Environment and Sustainable Development (OPED).
This project relates to Sustainable Development Goals 2, 3, 6, 8, 12, 13, 14, and 15.
