Basel Action Network (BAN) Workshop
Asia Development Bank Conference Kyoto Week

Michiyo Fujimoto

The other day I was talking with friends about what would happen with all those old TV sets if Digital Terrestrial Television was implemented. I heard that at most 64 million TV sets would be wasted. At this workshop I could see where used PCs and other electric divices had gone, which was quite shocking documentary.
Even if we intended to recycle electrical appliances, 90% of them, in fact, drift away from Japan. The documentary showed how people in China live with money from what they got out of the “recycling" operations without any protection from harmful toxic electric waste. Black smoke was in the air and river was black with dumped toxic waste. There was no safe drinking water, so they have to get safe water from other area.
It seems to be complicated, but there is the agreement called Basel Convention which may legalize toxic waste trades. This defective convention may allow Japan to export more waste. That's why now Basel Ban Rationale is very important. Unfortunately the U.S., Japan and some other nations are ignoring the Basel Ban.
The workshop also had a topic about Japan Philippine/Japan Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA/JTEPA) along with the Basel Convention. Tricky thing is that there are texts on tariffs in Japanese and English. The English one specifies the waste but not in Japanese one. If JPEPA was concluded, then the U.S. may force the Philippine the same condition, which leads the Philippine the garbage country. The presenter from the Philippine was encouraging us to see the real solutions which is to turn off the tap in Japan.

We have received information from our member in Germany, Ms. Roland Weber.
If you would like to see, please check the web site. http://www.ne.jp/asahi/kagaku/pico/