Geneva - Greater emphasis on highlighting the links between waste management, the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and human health and livelihoods underpin a new 10-year vision for the Basel Convention lately recommended by governments. Three hundred delegates from 106 countries welcomed the Convention's Strategic Framework 2012-2021 on the final day of a meeting in Geneva at which a range of pressing issues on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal have been considered.

Other key outcomes of the five-day meeting include moves to ensure strong controls on the rapidly growing ship dismantling industry, progress developing global recycling guidelines for used computers and support for furthering the objectives of the Ban Amendment to the Convention which prohibits the export of hazardous waste from developed countries to developing countries.

The Executive Secretary of the Basel Convention, Katharina Kummer Peiry, said the forum's positive results come at a time of renewed interest in the management of transboundary movements and disposal of hazardous wastes.

"The international community is signaling its support for increased efforts to promote the environmentally sound management of waste during a time of transition with new waste streams, new technological developments and ways in which waste moves around the world," Ms. Kummer Peiry said.

The main outcomes furthermore included endorsement by Parties to the Basel Convention of:

* Revised technical guidelines for the environmentally sound management of used tyres
* Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of mercury wastes, and
* Draft technical guidelines on the co-processing of hazardous waste in cement kilns.

The wide-ranging recommendations from the meeting will be put to the Basel Convention's next Conference of the Parties (COP 10) to be held in Cartagena, Colombia, from 17-21 October 2011.

More information can be found under unep.org.

Quelle: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

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