[WSIS CS-Plenary] Fwd: UN PROGRAMME AIMS AT ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND DISPOSAL OF ELECTRONIC WASTE

[Rik Panganiban]

For you WSIS sustainable development folks....

- Rik Panganiban

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "UN News Service" <UNNews at un.org>
> Date: November 25, 2005 4:01:18 PM EST
> To: <news4 at list.un.org>
> Subject: UN PROGRAMME AIMS AT ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND DISPOSAL OF  
> ELECTRONIC WASTE
> Reply-To: <UNNews at un.org>
>
> UN PROGRAMME AIMS AT ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND DISPOSAL OF ELECTRONIC  
> WASTE
> New York, Nov 25 2005  4:00PM
> A programme of action in the Asia-Pacific region to dispose of  
> electrical and electronic waste in an environmentally sound way and  
> stop its illegal trafficking was launched today, with the support  
> of the United Nations Environmental Programme's (UNEP) Basel  
> Convention Regional Centres in China, Indonesia and Samoa.
>
> Due to rapid industrialization, several developing countries in the  
> Asia-Pacific region need to access large quantities of secondary  
> raw materials, the Basel Convention Secretariat said. As a result,  
> large amounts of used and end-of-life electronic wastes are being  
> sent to them for recycling, recovery and refurbishment of non- 
> ferrous and precious metals at facilities which do not always meet  
> high environmental standards, it said.
>
> The 160-State Basel Convention is the world's most comprehensive  
> environmental agreement on hazardous and other wastes. Governments  
> are expected to minimize the generation of hazardous wastes, treat  
> and dispose of wastes as close as possible to their place of  
> generation and reduce the quantities transported.
>
> "The proper implementation of the Basel Convention ensures that  
> hazardous e-waste be managed in an environmentally sound manner as  
> it provides the tools for the transparency and traceability of e- 
> wastes destined for recycling or recovery," Basel Convention  
> Executive Secretary Sachiko Kuwabara-Yamamoto told a meeting of  
> some 100 representatives from governments, intergovernmental and  
> non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academia and industry.
>
> The development of international resource recycling systems would  
> have to be combined with a mechanism capable of monitoring such  
> systems to ensure their accountability, she said. That could not be  
> achieved, however, without intensified international efforts to  
> help developing countries strengthen their capacity to implement  
> the Convention.
>
> The launch was hosted by the Government of Japan, which made an  
> initial pledge of $300,000 to the programme, in cooperation with  
> the Secretariat of the Basel Convention on the Control of  
> Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal and  
> the Japanese National Institute for Environmental Studies.
>  2005-11-25 00:00:00.000
>
> ________________
>
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>
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=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
  Rik Panganiban             email: rikp at earthlink.net
  UN Reporting & Advocacy    tel: (+1) 917-710-5524
  Civil Society Organizer    web: http://rikomatic.com

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