Posts Tagged "Trafigura"

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.

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.

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.