Waste Crime - Waste Risks: Gaps in Meeting the Global Waste Challenge

The use of free ports is one of the key challenges in tackling the waste shipment chain. As a trade facilitation measure, many countries have free ports. Free ports, such as Hong Kong and Haiphong in Vietnam, do not levy customs tariffs on imports and exports other than liquors, tobacco, hydrocarbon oil, and methyl alcohol. Smugglers take advantage of free ports to traffic waste to mainland China or other countries, altering or forging trading documents, disguising transport routes, etc. Due to the loose control and relaxed policies applied in free ports, monitoring the shipments is difficult. As a result, large quantities of illegal waste shipments go through free ports, such as Hong Kong and Haiphong. The ports of northwest Europe (for example, Tilbury and Felixstowe in England and Antwerp in Belgium) and of the Mediterranean are used to transport Europe’s e-waste, shipped as second-hand electronics, and end-of-life vehicles to West Africa and Asia. E-waste is most often shipped in containers to ports in Nigeria (Lagos, Tincan Island), Ghana (Tema), and Benin (Cotonou). European environmental authorities are investigating the potential for e-waste ship- ments to Africa via roll-on roll-off ferries.

To combat growing illegal waste imports, China launched Operation Green Fence in 2013 to strictly enforce its laws governing the import of waste. The main measures taken under Operation Green Fence include: • Strengthened control of waste shipments on the exporting side • Enhanced investigation and intelligence collection • Improved multi-agency coordination and cooperation, including international cooperation with UNEP and the Basel Convention Regional and Coordinating Centres (BCRCs), and domestic coordination with Environmental Protection Agencies and The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ). • Organized training workshops • Circulation of a technical document, Guidelines on Inves- tigating Waste Cases In 2014, seizures of illegal waste shipments in China decreased dramatically. China’s customs authorities detected 68 cases, totalling approximately 213 thousand tonnes, in the first nine months of 2014. That was just one-quarter of the previous year’s total. The decrease could be the effect of Operation Green Fence’s strong enforcement campaign in 2013. It also means that the early routes of illegal waste shipments have changed.

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