Fitzsimons Jeanette: Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Fitzsimons Jeanette: Imports and Exports (Restrictions) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7000] 
JEANETTE FITZSIMONS (Co-Leader—Green) 
: The Greens are happy to support this legislation which implements several international conventions. It implements the Rotterdam convention which requires the informed consent of the receiving country before sending it hazardous wastes the Stockholm convention which prohibits or controls persistent organic pollutants including prohibitions on their export or import and the Basel and Waigani conventions which control the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes to ensure that there is the capacity to handle them properly. 
In my first reading speech on the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (Stockholm Convention) Amendment Bill I drew attention to the ways in which New Zealand is currently in breach of the Basel convention. Today I want to report on that in a little more detail. The preamble to this bill identifies the objectives of the Basel convention. They are the reduction in transboundary movements of hazardous wastes to the minimum amount that is consistent with environmentally sound and efficient management their treatment and disposal as close as possible to the source of generation and the minimisation of the generation of such wastes. The Ministry of Economic Development is responsible for implementing the Basel convention and the ministry is not doing its job. It is perhaps not entirely appropriate that the Ministry of Economic Development should be responsible for administering such important environmental policy. 
For several years now New Zealand has been exporting hazardous waste in the form of used lead-acid batteries to a plant in the Philippines that the New Zealand Government says is capable of handling them but that is in fact allowing the waste to collapse into a river and pollute river sediments to a level that would actually make that riverbed a lucrative lead mine. According to answers to written questions the ministry has approved for export over the last 3 years quantities ranging from 200 to 2500 tonnes of lead-acid batteries a year to that plant. In an oral question in December last year I asked the Minister for the Environment about the monitoring we do of the hazardous wastes that we export to non-OECD countries and of the way they are treated in those countries. Pete Hodgson answering on behalf of the Minister did not have any information on that and little information has been provided since. The Minister had previously defended exporting hazardous used batteries to a developing country by saying: “Some non-OECD countries have perfectly sound disposal facilities.” That is the key to whether we should worry about battery exports to Philippine Recyclers Inc. 
In an answer to a written question Marian Hobbs told us that all facilities to which New Zealand sends hazardous wastes have been assessed by the Ministry of Economic Development for their capacity to manage hazardous wastes in an environmentally sound manner. We discovered that “assess” in that case amounted to receiving a letter from the Philippines authority that the plant met its requirements. But it is well known that one of the distinguishing differences between OECD countries and non-OECD countries is the institutional capacity to monitor and enforce Government requirements. The Philippines Department of Health Bureau of International Health Cooperation stated in January 2002 that the Philippines has weak enforcement of control measures and programmes on hazardous waste due to the inadequate expertise of those handling the inspections and that the Philippines “has no legal basis for Government inspection of industrial operations in order to address under-reporting of production levels and wastes generated by factories”. So relying on the assurances of the Philippines authority is naive to say the least. 
When the Ministry of Economic Development assesses the capacity of facilities it refers to the facilities being capable of handling hazardous wastes in an environmentally sound manner but not to whether they actually do so. The actual record of Philippine Recyclers Inc. leaves me with a lot of concern. In 1990 it was found that some of its workers had seriously high lead levels in their blood and some still have mental health problems and compromised immune systems. In 1996 the plant was found to be dumping battery waste illegally leading to serious contamination and the damage continues. We now have photographs of piles of lead waste sitting outside exposed to the elements. A month ago on 30 May the retaining wall collapsed and dumped large quantities of battery waste into the river. We have other photos too but the one I have here is the clearest one to show the House. A month later that wall has still not been fixed. We have the figures for upstream and downstream lead levels in sediments and they are appalling. The lead level in some of those river sediments measured outside the factory is 24 percent—the level of a particularly rich lead mine. On all downstream sites the lead levels are many times above the acceptable levels; in fact they are between 3 times and 300 times the levels that they are upstream of the plant. 
In New Zealand certain permits are required to dispose of the residual waste to the most modern landfills. In the Philippines the company has simply been stockpiling that waste since its practice of dumping it in remote uncontrolled dumps was forbidden. Minister Tamihere has told us in response to another written question that the factory has international standard ISO 14001 accreditation which sounds good. But the ISO standard is more about intentions and plans than about actual performance and it is clear that the performance is abysmal. 
But even if Philippine Recyclers Inc was not such a poor performer New Zealand should still not be exporting its waste batteries overseas. Even if used lead-acid battery recycling is 98 percent efficient at recovering materials there is still no known way to make the residual waste safe. By exporting used lead-acid batteries we are imposing the externalities of processing our hazardous waste on people in the Philippines. We have a moral obligation to deal with our own waste and not to export harm. That trade is in direct contravention of the Basel Convention in two respects. First it does not reduce transboundary movement to the minimum consistent with environmentally sound and efficient management. No one could describe the behaviour of that plant as environmentally sound. Second it does not treat and dispose of the waste as closely as possible to the source of generation because there is a battery recycling facility in New Zealand. Here in Wellington and complying with all the environmental requirements of the Wellington Regional Council is the Exide Technologies battery recycling plant which cannot get enough batteries to keep it fully utilised and is importing them from Australia. So while New Zealand batteries are travelling the high seas to a destination where they will be recycled badly with severe risk to the environment and people at the same time Australian batteries are travelling the high seas to keep the New Zealand plant going. How stupid and how ludicrous can free trade get? 
That is an example of why New Zealand should ratify the Basel ban a further amendment to the Basel convention. The Basel ban stops the export of hazardous waste to non-OECD countries because they are unlikely to have adequate systems in place to handle it safely and developed countries should take responsibility themselves for the waste that they create. It is not yet in force and New Zealand is among the countries that has refused to ratify it. The Philippine Recyclers Inc plant with its supposed environmental excellence has been touted by New Zealand and others as evidence for why the ban should not be ratified. The evidence I have presented should put that nonsense to rest. New Zealanders are damaging the Philippines environment and the health of its people by sending their hazardous waste to a company that is supposed to have the capacity to handle it but does not care enough to do so properly. It is out of sight out of mind for New Zealanders but not for the Filipinos. 
I challenge the Minister under the excellent words and objectives of the New Zealand waste strategy to put a mandatory refundable deposit on all New Zealand batteries so that there is an incentive to recycle them here. That used to be the case not so many years ago before the free trade deregulation that allowed open slather in our markets. I also challenge the Minister to ratify the Basel ban and to side with the countries that are trying to improve environmental standards rather than those that are trying to duck them. That is the context in which we support this rather limited bill but we would like to see the policy go a lot further.