TERMS OF ENGAGEMENT TOWARDS AN ETHICAL CIRCULAR ECONOMY

摘要

A few months ago,I attended a conference on electronic-waste recycling that featured a speaker from a prominent US law firm that helps large corporations to understand how the Basel Convention constrains free trade in toxic waste.His first slide showed a picture of a large container ship.He said:”When we talk about the circular economy,we are talking about this.And,”he clicked to the second slide,”when we talk about the biggest obstacles to the circular economy,we are talking about the Basel Convention.”I almost fell off my chair.Days later,at a ship-recycling congress representatives of yards on south Asia's infamous shopbreaking beaches showed promotional films touting how their scrap operations are vital to a vibrant circular economy.These sites are where some of the world's most exploitive,”recycling”takes place.Obsolete,toxic ships are run up on the beaches for impoverished laborers to dismantle,using little more than a cutting torch.These yards expose workers’lungs to toxic paints,sludges,asbestos,lead and PCBs and destroy once-pristine beaches and mangrove forests.Then,at this spring's 14th Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention in Geneva,the plastics industry complained that the historic decision that the meeting sought to reach-to place trade controls on plastic waste flooding developing Asian countries-would harm the circular economy.