Polish Law to Check Hazardous Trade

After hazardous, banned pesticides produced in Germany were found in Poland, the Polish Government has taken steps to protect the country from becoming a dumping ground for the industrial world’s expired and withdrawn products. The new prohibition on imports of hazardous products is part of broad legislation to control import of toxic wastes.

Lorry stopped when leaving Germany for Eastern Europe with 180 containers of toxic waste and Fekama - a hazardous insecticide made in the former East Germany. Police inspection found papers were not in order. Photo: Greenpeace/Muller.

On 3 August 1993, the Polish Minister of Environmental Protection, Natural Resources and Forestry issued a list of hazardous waste banned for import and export, which came into force on 3 September 1993. It consists of 106 categories of waste that are banned for import into Poland, including 10 categories of hazardous products such as pesticides which have been widely withdrawn elsewhere.

      In 1988, Poland opened its borders to the world. The county’s proximity to some of the most highly industrial nations, made Poland a key target for the dumping of industrial wastes and outdated and withdrawn products.

      In 1989, Poland introduced a ban on all waste trade imports. However this law was unclear and waste continued to be imported under the guise of recycling. Waste export schemes publicised by October 1990 included waste solvents, paints, incinerator residues, sewage sludge and dredged spoils from rivers and ports. When East and West Germany were unified in the autumn of 1990, a number of industrial substances, formerly produced in the former East Germany, became illegal overnight. These included pesticides banned under European Community and former West German law. Instead of being categorised as hazardous waste and treated as such in Germany, many of the banned pesticides were shipped to the newly opened Eastern European countries. In July 1991, 36,000 litres and 12,000 kg of falison, a mercury-based pesticide, produced by a former East German manufacturer (which could no longer be sold in the new unified Germany), were found in Poland. Under a return to sender agreement between Germany and Poland, the illegal pesticides were returned to Germany.

      Other countries have not been so fortunate. Under the European Community’s 1988 Regulation concerning the export of chemical substances banned for use in the European Community, banned pesticides were legally shipped from Germany to Albania in 1991 and 1992 as 'humanitarian aid'. When the pesticides arrived, the Albanian authorities found that the chemicals had passed their use-by date, were improperly packed and generally unsuitable for agricultural use. No dispersal facility exists in Albania and by 1993 many of the pesticide containers were badly damaged and leaking.

      Poland’s new regulations are a useful model for other countries vulnerable to toxic waste and product exports from industrialised countries. But they are not without their problems. The legislation could provide an effective barrier to hazardous waste and product imports if it were not for the fact that it is extremely difficult to monitor and control imports at the border. “It clearly should be the responsibility of the industrialised nations to put an end to the production of toxic waste and withdrawn products” says Greenpeace’s Eastern Europe Toxic Trade Campaigner, Iza Kruszewska. “It is fundamentally absurd and unethical that a country that is economically weak should take over the responsibility of controlling and policing trade in toxic waste and banned substances” says Ms. Kruszewska.

Source: Iza Kruszewska, Greenpeace International, November 1993.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 22, December 1993, page 18]