"Companies might decide to move waste on [sic] the disguise of failure analysis."

From p. 1 of response by African Group to Basel Secretariat. 2015. ‘Decision BC-12/5 | Technical Guidelines on Transboundary Movements of Electrical and Electronic Waste and Used Electrical and Electronic Equipment, in Particular Regarding the Distinction between Waste and Non-Waste under the Basel Convention’. http://www.basel.int/TheConvention/ConferenceoftheParties/Meetings/COP12/tabid/4248/mctl/ViewDetails/EventModID/8051/EventID/542/xmid/13027/Default.aspx.

 

“BAN gave a strong warning to Parties that what was being adopted in the new Paragraph 30b was a grave mistake. Let it be known that the Contact Group had virtually no time to review and discuss what was left in the Guideline after critical unfinished language was simply removed from the main document and placed in an annex.  And, as we shall see, the resulting partial Guideline creates far more dangerous problems than it solves.

Paragraph 30b: The Reparability Loophole

By moving all of the undecided text into an annex and only leaving what was easily accepted, the Contact Group gutted almost all of the safeguards that the negotiators had already deemed necessary to make a proper package of protective conditions for exporting used electronics outside of the Convention.  What remains in the Guideline regarding exports for repair are simply a few (lowest common denominator) easily achieved conditions lacking in any real teeth or accountability”


“While it was never the intention at the outset of this work on the Technical Guideline, the Parties have created the biggest loophole the Basel Convention has ever seen.  And they have created the “Reparability Loophole” for the most problematic waste stream of our time – electronic waste.”

From p. 2 and 4 (emphasis in the original) of response by BAN to Basel Secretariat. 2015. ‘Decision BC-12/5 | Technical Guidelines on Transboundary Movements of Electrical and Electronic Waste and Used Electrical and Electronic Equipment, in Particular Regarding the Distinction between Waste and Non-Waste under the Basel Convention’. http://www.basel.int/TheConvention/ConferenceoftheParties/Meetings/COP12/tabid/4248/mctl/ViewDetails/EventModID/8051/EventID/542/xmid/13027/Default.aspx.