Hong Kong’s illegal e-waste dumps ... whose fault? War of words between US watchdog and government
Hong Kong’s environmental protection department under fire for failing to prevent the import of electronic waste, with activists claiming they have been providing information on illegal dump sites since 2007.
A war of words has broken out over claims by the government that a major US watchdog had failed to alert the environmental protection department of a number of toxic electronic waste sites in the New Territories.
Hong Kong’s environmental protection department has come under fire for failing to enforce transboundary laws preventing the import of electronic waste, following a report by watchdog Basel Action Network that used GPS trackers to expose Hong Kong as a “pollution haven” for US exporters, with 37 out of 65 items exported out of the US to Hong Kong.
The network claims to have alerted the department of the specific sites earlier this year. But a spokesman for the department, Gary Tam, in an email exchange with Basel Action Network’s director Jim Puckett, accused the network of failing to notify them of specific sites.
“Mr Puckett of Basel Action Network had [not] informed the environmental protection department about the hazardous e-waste entering Hong Kong,” said Tam.
“We have provided all of the 47 locations that we have discovered to the department via our tracking technology on June 16. Prior to that, we provided them with four sites,” said Puckett.
The network has accused the department of failing to act on years’ worth of notifications of different hazardous e-waste sites where exporters rely on lax enforcement and legislative loopholes unique to Hong Kong to bring toxic materials in. It has threatened to file official complaints with the parties to the Basel Convention and to mainland China delegates.
