7. Bordered to the north by the world's largest hazardous waste producing nation, the United States, the Wider Caribbean Region lies on the front lines of the international trade in toxic wastes. Almost every country in the Caribbean region has been targeted as a waste dumpsite by waste brokers operating from the United States, and these nations are under increasing pressure to accept the wastes. In fact, during 1990 alone, information became available on at least 21 deals to import a wide range of waste into the Wider Caribbean countries. Unfortunately, it appears that the numbers of offers will continue to increase.

RECENT TRENDS

8. Wastes are often presented by dealers as useful raw materials for landfills, recycling, fuel substitution, or housing and road construction. In addition to their presentation as "development projects" that will generate everything from jobs to electricity, these deals are often accompanied by offers of monetary commissions, technical assistance and infrastructural support. Waste dealers always try to assure potential buyers that the waste is totally harmless, or that it can be safely handled. Regarding the deals offered in the region in 1990, it is possible to detect three major trends.

Municipal garbage & incinerator ash

9. The first trend is a significant increase in the number of deals being offered to Caribbean countries to accept garbage or ash generated by municipal garbage incinerators from major U.S. cities. While governments are assured by waste brokers that municipal incinerator ash is not hazardous, there are ample laboratory studies of the ash available to document dangerous levels of heavy metals, including lead, chromium, mercury, cadmium, copper and zinc contained in these ashes. In addition, the ashes contain consistent amounts of dioxins, a complex group of extremely toxic and bioaccumulating chemicals, shown to cause cancers, birth defects and other reproductive problems, and damage the immune system at levels as low as one part per quadrillion (1 part per 1,000,000,000,000,000).

10. Given that U.S. cities are facing rapidly increasing quantities of garbage, ever-rising local disposal costs and liability risks for environment damage, they may be increasingly tempted to offer their waste or incinerator ash "free-of-charge," presenting it as useful raw material. In northern eastern U.S. cities, average disposal fees for incinerator ash are $70 to $90 per ton, plus transportation and other transfer costs; for particularly hazardous ash the fee can reach $140 per ton.

European chemical wastes

11. The second trend is that a number of European chemical industries are trying to export hazardous wastes to developing countries. Again, this is to escape the high cost of local disposal which in the United States now can cost up to $2,400 per ton for hazardous waste incineration, as well as the serious environmental and health risks inherent in the handling and disposal of these substances. This trend is expected to increase after 1992 when new definitions for waste will at least double the amount of waste requiring special management.

12. These chemical wastes can be especially hazardous, in particular the halogenated solvents, since they generate high levels of dioxins and furans, when burnt in disposal operations, or invariably escape into the groundwater when disposed of in landfills.

13. As persistent, bioaccumulating and extremely toxic substances, dioxins and furans represent some of the most hazardous contaminants known; they can have long-term negative impacts on virtually every ecosystem, make it unsafe to consume fish and seafood from aquatic systems near dioxin-furan emitting installations and provoke significant, long-term human health problems.

Lead Contaminated Waste

14. The third trend is that, as the United States regulations have tightened and made it increasingly difficult to dispose of lead slag and other lead-contaminated wastes in this country, there has been a greater activity recently among waste traders to offer lead wastes. These wastes are generally presented as useful raw material for recycling, construction or road-building purposes. In fact, they are highly toxic. Small doses of lead can adversely affect many human organs and cause behavioural and learning problems in children; prolonged excessive exposure can cause damage to the peripheral and central nervous systems.