by Karin Gauer

Exporting hazardous waste from industrialized to developing countries has now been recognized for what it is: environmental crime. But years before it made the headlines in the international press, resulting in the Basle International Convention on controlling international transport of hazardous waste, finalized in March 1989, the Carl Duisberg Gesellschaft (CDG) had already made management of hazardous waste a central topic of its environmental training programmes.

Meanwhile, the branch of the CDG in Bangkok (Thailand) and its Natural Resources section in Berlin can look back on a whole series of professional advanced training measures. The aim of these measures, carried out with environment experts from the threshold countries of South-East Asia and Latin America, was to establish a legal, organizational and technical basis for solving the waste problem. Such solutions must be financially acceptable to the countries involved and must not hinder their ambitious industrialization efforts .A fur the raim was to exploit knowledge already available in the highly industrialized countries, of environmentally compatible waste disposal practices, and the corrections made in recent years, to develop country-specific strategies.

Two weeks or 15 months

In tackling the problem, the Natural Resources section used two different instruments to disseminate knowledge: first, two-week study meetings were held in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). These were addressed to politically responsible executive staff of environmental authorities. Second, building on these courses, fifteen-month professional advanced training programmes were developed for future "disposal" specialists from the countries participating. The aim of these long-term professional advanced training programmes is to familiarize the participants with the "state of the art" as regards disposal and avoidance of hazardous waste.

The study meetings held in 1986 (for APO member countries) and 1988 (for Brazil, Argentina and Mexico) covered the following areas:

In the first part, in the form of an "introductory seminar", the legal, administrative and technical aspects of hazardous waste disposal in the FRG were presented. The focus here was on discussion of the (German) Technical Act on Waste, issued in 1986, as the expression of a change of course in environmental policy, as a result of which the avoidance (preventive requirement) and utilization of waste were expressly embodied in legislation for the first time. This discussion was particularly important for the Latin America countries participating, since the first laws regulating the disposal of hazardous waste were promulgated there in 1988, and the environment authorities are now faced with the problem of preparing appropriate enforcement regulations and ensuring that these are observed.

The second part was devoted to the procedures adopted by Hessischer Industriemüll GmbH (Hessian Industrial Waste Company; HIM) to dispose of hazardous industrial waste for the Federal state of Hesse. However, the visit to the three central disposal plants (physicochemical pretreatment, hazardous waste incinerator and dump) was not limited merely to a presentation of the disposal technologies. The capital and operating costs of the various facilities were also considered, as well as the extent to which the financing arrangements could be emulated in the participating countries. In addition, avoidance and disposal methods used in industry were seen.

The eleven environment experts from the three Latin American threshold countries who are currently taking part in the long-term professional advanced training programme will finish in December 1989 by developing -without supervision - country-specific master plans for treatment of hazardous waste. To date, the programme has consisted in a combination of theoretical instruction and practical work at disposal facilities.

New individual programme

In addition, from September 1989 onwards, it will offer a three-month "individual programme", which is intended to cater for the specific needs, interests and future tasks of participants.

In view of the gigantic problems with contaminated sites resulting from industrial activity and "unorganized" dumps, for example, the four representatives of the São Paulo environmental authority CETESB chose to focus on methods of identifying contaminated sites.

Here, they are less interested in finding out about high sophisticated technologies in order to recuperate contaminated sites, e. g . at Georgswerder, than in learning about simple, transferrable and safe methods of locating it and rendering it ecologically harmless, in order to prevent any further risk of ground water pollution in the São Paulo region.

In the past, in view of the urgency of the problem, the professional advanced training programmes were designed primarily to achieve controlled, ecologically and economically rational disposal of hazardous industrial waste. (Mexico, for example, "produces" five million tons of hazardous waste per year.) In the future, however, it is planned to lay more emphasis on the development and dissemination of knowledge about low-waste technologies as a preventive complement to disposal.

The CETESB has already expressed interest in further/raining activities: the first planning workshop is to be held in São Paulo early in 1990, and will provide a forum for the four environment experts trained in the FRG to bring their experience to bear on the development of longer-term cooperation programmes.