The Third World Vs Western Garbage

The fact that 3 people died in the Ivory Coast is sad but the wider issue is horrible, I’m talking about the Toxic waste that seems to have simply been dumped into Abidjan’s water supply, killing 3, 1500 needing medical attention and 30 000 demanding check ups. Corruption has played a hand in the illegal dumping but the reality seems to be a double standard where companies who would never dream of dumping their toxic waste in expensive western countries have no problem dumping it cheaply in third world countries. Of course these things play to domestic beliefs that the West hate Africans and couldn’t care less about dumping Toxic waste into their water supplies, and as the BBC points out, none of this should be happening in the first place…

In theory, none of this should be happening. The Basel Convention On The Transboundary Movements Of Hazardous Wastes And Their Disposal and its offshoot treaties are supposed to prevent it.

Western citizens may object to waste processing plants on their own fragrant soil, western corporations may prefer to export garbage rather than charging consumers the full cost of clean disposal; Basel is the theoretical bar stopping poor countries from becoming the world's toxic dustbin.

But parts of the Basel structure remain un-ratified, a decade after their signature, by countries which see an interest in putting their own waste "somewhere else"; environmental groups lambast Australia and the US in particular.