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prior notification to and consent from the country of final destination. whether member or non-member country; and a guarantee of existence of adequate disposal facilities in the recipient country. UNEP has drawn up extensive draft guidelines, but as of now there is no effective mechanism either to monitor or to control hazardous waste trade and dumping.[1]Governments and international organizations must more actively support efforts to achieve an effect. ire international regime to control the transfrontier movement of hazardous wastes.
5.3 Industrial Accident
81. Accidents involving toxic chemicals and radioactive materials can occur in plants in any region. According to a survey carried out by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 6,928 accidents of varying severity occurred at U.S. plants between 1980 and 1985 – an average of five a day.[2]
82. In 1984. liquid gas storaqe tanks exploded in Mexico City, killing 1,000 people and lea,ring thousands more homeless. Only months after the Bhopal tragedy in India. which killed over 2,000 people and injured 200,000 more, an accident at a plant in West Virginia in the United States operated by the parent company of the Bhopal-facility resulted in emergency evacuation of residents and some health problems. The accidental release in 1976 of the highly toxic and mutagenic chemical dioxin at Seveso, Italy, and the ensuing saga of drums of contaminated soil being passed around Europe, also showed that in industrial countries regulations can be evaded and minimum safety standards breached.
83. In early November 1986, a fire at a warehouse of a chemicals manufacturer in Basel, Switzerland, sent toxic fumes into France and the Federal Republic of Germany and released toxic chemicals into the Rhine, causing massive fish kills and affecting the vital water supply in countries downstream, all the way to the Netherlands. Scientists investigating the Rhine agreed that it could be years before the damaged riverine ecosystems would return to their former status.[3]
84. Thus incidents at Mexico City, Bhopal, Chernobyl, and Basel-all occurring within the short lifetime of this Commission raised public concern about industrial disasters. They also demonstrated the likelihood of significant increases in the frequency and magnitude of industrial accidents with catastrophic consequences.
85. These events point to the need to strengthen national capabilities and the framework for bilateral and regional cooperation. National and local governments should:
- survey hazardous industrial operations and adopt and enforce regulations or guidelines on the safe operation of industrial plants and on the transport, handling, and disposal of hazardous materials;
- adopt land use policies or regional development plans that would require or provide incentives to industries that have a high pollution or accident potential to
- ↑ UNEP 'Transfrontier Movements'. op. cid. See also M.J. Suess and J.W. Huismans (eds.), Management of Hazardous Waste: Policy Guidelines and Code of Practice (Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe. 1983).
- ↑ Preliminary findings of a study conducted for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 'Acute Hazardous Data Base', Washigton, D.C., 1985, quoted in Yakowitz, op. cit.
- ↑ See, for example, La Suisse, 3-9 November; Die Welt, 10 November; Die Zeit, 14 November; Der Spieqel, 17 November; International Herald Tribune, 14–16 November 1986.
