Misguided shot

india has again shown its willingness to be led by the West to commit euthanasia. It has adopted the draft technical guidelines for managing plastic waste prepared by the technical working group of the Basel Convention on January 14-15, 2002, in Geneva. About 100 countries, all signatories to the Basel Convention have adopted the guidelines.

The ‘Draft Technical Guidelines for the Identification and Environmentally Sound Management of Plastic Wastes and for their Disposal’ will now set the mandate for the 6th Conference of the Parties (CoP-6) to the Basel Convention scheduled to be held in December 2002 at Geneva. The Basel Convention on the control of the Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal came into being in March 1989 after a series of notorious ‘toxic cargoes’ from developed countries drew public attention to the dumping of hazardous waste in developing and East European countries. The Convention regulates the movement of these wastes and obliges its members to ensure that such wastes are managed and disposed of in an environmentally sound manner.

The technical guidelines on plastics adopted by the convention’s nineteenth technical working group (which are set up to draw up the agenda prior to the CoPs) aims to provide technological advice on how to handle safely, compact, store and transport plastic waste. It suggests what are the preferred technolo