GS 3 : Environment-Conservation, Environmental Pollution & Degradation

Why in news?

Around 180 governments agreed on a new UN accord to regulate the export of plastic waste.

Highlights:

• The Geneva meeting amended the 1989 Basel Convention on the control of hazardous wastes to include plastic waste in a legally-binding framework.
• The new amendment would empower developing countries to refuse “dumping plastic waste.
• It aims to eliminate two toxic chemical groups —Dicofol and Perfluorooctanoic Acid, plus related compounds.

Basel Convention:

• The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, usually known as the Basel Convention, is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries (LDCs).The overarching objective of the Basel Convention is to protect human health and the environment against the adverse effects of hazardous wastes.
• Its scope of application covers a wide range of wastes defined as “hazardous wastes” based on their origin and/or composition and their characteristics, as well as two types of wastes defined as “other wastes” –household waste and incinerator ash.

Aims and provisions:

• the reduction of hazardous waste generation and the promotion of environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes, wherever the place of disposal;
• the restriction of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes except where it is perceived to be in accordance with the principles of environmentally sound management; anda regulatory system applying to caseswhere transboundary movements are permissible.