NAIROBI - More than 100 countries agreed steps on Friday to tackle a rising tide of toxic waste including millions of old computers, phones and fridges. But officials said delegates were less ready to pay to help the world's poorest nations guard against the most deadly cases of illegal waste dumping, like one in August that killed 10 people and sickened thousands more in Ivory Coast.

Sachiko Kuwabara Yamamoto, head of the United Nations' Basel Convention to monitor and control hazardous waste, said the scores of delegates at five days of talks in Kenya had achieved a lot, principally on efforts to curb electronic waste. "But my concern is while this conference was very articulate in identifying the problems, the commitment of resources to help developing countries leaves a lot to be desired," she said.

Top of the agenda at the Nairobi meeting was the growing menace of decrepit electronics being dumped in poor nations, particularly in Africa, often disguised as charitable donations. Up to 50 million tonnes of "e-waste" is generated worldwide each year, and activists say if manufacturers were made to take more responsibility for their items -- from the design stage to recovery and reuse -- they would make safer, longer-life goods.

PROTECTING THE POOREST
Delegates agreed to launch pilot projects to set up take-back schemes for different products, drawing on the Basel body's work with a dozen big mobile phone manufacturers studying ways of recycling or safely disposing of obsolete handsets. They also pledged to boost global cooperation on fighting illegal trafficking, and improving technical guidelines.

"Whatever is agreed...developing countries should no longer be victims of hazardous waste transfers disguised as end-of-life or even as usable equipment," Yamamoto told a news conference. The conference also condemned the dumping in August of deadly petrol "slops" in Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan.

Africa is seen as most at risk from the lucrative and growing illegal trade in toxic waste, due to corruption, poor political oversight and often lax domestic laws on dumping. Safiatou Ba-N'Daw, the coordinator of the Ivorian government's Plan to Combat Hazardous Waste, pleaded for donor funds to help clean and restore the contaminated sites. "No one is contributing to the clean-up at this point, other than the government," she said. The long-term operation is expected to cost nearly $30 million.
By Daniel Wallis
(Planet Ark, 04/12/2006)
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/39295/story.htm