Pollutions and Traffics

Subject : Ivory Coast/Toxic wastes

The toxic wastes spread on the Ivory Coast August 19-20, 2006 are in the course of recovery, packaging, and gathering, as observed by Robin des Bois in Abidjan. Given that these wastes were dumped over one month ago, the dredging of deposits will generate a final quantity greater than the initial quantity, approximately 500 tons. It is essential, in order to allay the inquietude of the Abidjan populations, that the collection of waste leave the Ivory Coast and return to their point of departure, namely Europe (see press release “Call for a waste charter” from September 12, 2006). There is neither in the Netherlands nor in Estonia a facility capable of thermal treatment elimination of these wastes, declared as ship-generated wastes which should have been discharged in ports of Amsterdam or Paldiski. These facilities are available in various European countries such as Finland, Germany, Belgium, and France. Whatever treatment site or sites are chosen after confirmation of different conflicting analyses, a public information session must be organized to avoid the phenomenon of rejection that was seen in 1988 when waste fraudulently stored in Nigeria were returned to Europe aboard the Karin B (see Robin des Bois’s press dossier from the Abidjan conference, “The first wave and the ebbtide” or the article about the Karin B in la Flèche et le Marin).

Mr. Claude Dauphin, held in the Ivory Coast under investigation of toxic discharges from the Probo Koala, is a leader of Trafigura (see preceding notice). He is known as a follower of Marc Rich (see article “The Rich Boys” in Business Week’s July 18, 2005 edition and the Robin des Bois’s press release “My pollueur is Rich” from January 29, 2003). He began his international career in London as a broker of oil products. Under his name, he developed the GDE—Guy Dauphin Environment—a familial society for the recycling of metals and batteries. The society’s historic site is based near Caen, Normandy, and its parent company is the Ecore group.

Claude Dauphin, principal shareholder of Guy Dauphin Environment, which is known in France and abroad as a booming development in the field of recycling but poorly controlled in regards to environmental issues, would also be one of the leaders of the Trafigura holding company. Trafigura is the holding company under Dutch law which chartered the Probo Koala (Panamanian flag, Greek shipowner), the ship responsible for the pollution of the Ivory Coast. Claude Dauphin was, in addition, the creator of a London society for the brokerage of oil products and wastes, Ecore, today owned by Trafigura. Once again it is demonstrated that recycling procedures and dealing of oil waste in this specific case are absolutely not controlled by the European states.

Subject : Ivory Coast/Toxic wastes

The belated and muddled accounts of multinational Trafigura, broker of oil products whose parent company is based in the Netherlands, intend to conceal the terrible truth. Trafigura delivered the non complying waste to the operator Amsterdam Port Services (APS), refused to pay the treatment surcharge, and did not respect the European Parliament and Counsel’s directive on port facilities receiving ship-generated wastes and cargo residues. With the complicity of environmental authorities at the Amsterdam port, the ship unloaded and reloaded its wastes, and continued to the Estonian port of Paldiski, where the residues were still not discharged. The logistics coordinator from Trafigura selected the Abidjan port as the final receptacle of these wastes. Certainly Abidjan’s financial conditions for reception are markedly more advantageous than those of Amsterdam, but elimination conditions there are also distinctly inferior, especially when cleaning and cargo residues contain thiol, hydrogen sulfide, and sodium hydroxide.

We hope that so far as it is technically possible and to avoid all further sanitary problems and concerns amongst the Abidjan populations, the wastes spread over more than 10 sites around the capital of the Ivory Coast one month ago will be aggregated, condensed, packaged, and sent to Europe for treatment. It is simply disgraceful that no initiative to this effect has yet been formulated or undertaken by ship owners, charterers, or, in their absence, European political authorities. Beyond the controversy of the potential complicities in the Ivory Coast, it is evident that the volition and the act of spreading these toxic wastes in a country in which the elimination procedures are nearly nonexistent constitute a crime.

1.) On the applicable law concerning cargo residues or ship-generated waste:
The cargo residues pumped in Abidjan on August 19 and 20th from the tanks of the Probo Koala are not beholden to the Basel Convention, which theoretically obliges countries exporting waste and the countries importing them to establish a bilateral dossier giving evidence that the first does not have adequate techniques of treating these wastes and that the second has adequate available techniques or still that the exported waste are beneficially useful to the importing country. The Basel Convention excludes ship-generated waste from its jurisdiction in its founding text.
However, and just to satisfy the juridical vacancy, the European directive on facilities for port reception of ship-generated waste and cargo residues (2000) requires all ships nearing ports of the European community to unload their waste in designated facilities. The treatment, beneficial usage, and elimination of exploited waste and cargo residues must conform to European legislation, notably that concerning used oils and dangerous waste.
Insofar as the Probo Koala was already loaded with its cargo waste in the European ports that it entered in July 2006 before making its way towards Lagos and Abidjan, it is in violation of the European legislation and the national law of European States where it called into port before its incursion into the southern hemisphere.
This scenario, which seems the most plausible in view of declarations from the both ship owner and the charterer stationed in Europe, implies then a conspiracy on their part and a negligence of European authorities allowing the actions of important economies to the detriment of the sanitary and environmental state of a totally disorganized and economically stricken country. The treatment of these polluted sludge and their elimination would cost in Europe 400-500 euros per m³, 10-15 times more than in the Ivory Coast.
The hypothesis that some liquid or paste waste were mixed with cargo residues just for the purpose of dodging the Basel Convention cannot be ruled out.

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Only in French.