2007年VOA标准英语-Lawsuit Focuses Attention on Hazardous Waste Du

By Phuong Tran
Dakar
31 January 2007

Despite an international ban on toxic¹ waste dumping, environmentalists say unscrupulous companies find ways to continue exporting their deadly cargo². Vast quantities of waste are exported from rich to poor countries, in the name of recycling.  Much of that trade is illegal. Recent legal developments highlight how Africa's ports are often targeted as a cheap dumping ground in this illegal toxic trade. Phuong Tran reports from VOA's West Africa Bureau on the challenges of tracking hazardous³ waste.

 
Waste removal experts work to remove hazardous black sludge from a garbage dump in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, 17 Sept 2006
Hundreds of people have joined a British lawsuit⁴ against a Dutch-based oil trader, Trafigura, saying it illegally dumped tons of waste in the Ivory Coast, last August.

More than 200 Ivorians are suing the company for what they say is the aftermath of the deadly dumping.

Ivorian health authorities have reported at least 10 people died and thousands remain sick from the poisonous sludge dumped into more than 15 open-air sites in Abidjan.

The company has denied responsibility.  In a written statement, Trafigura, which has an office in London where the case is being pursued, says the ship it chartered carried mostly commercial gasoline from Estonia en route to Nigeria. The statement says the ship legally offloaded some waste through a local Ivorian company.

The lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, Martin Day, reacts strongly to this defense⁵.

"Total utter rubbish," he said.  "They accepted themselves that the slops were chemical slops. It is clear that the Ivory Coast had no facilities whatsoever⁶ to treat this waste. Trafigura knew what they were shipping⁷ to the Ivory Coast. They were doing it, because they did not want to pay the money to have it treated it in the developed world."

The United Nations environment program estimates the cleanup in the Ivory Coast will cost at least $30 million.

Helen Perivier, with the Dutch-based environmental non-profit Greenpeace, says the world woke up to the waste trade problem and its costly⁸ cleanup in the late 1980s. It responded with international treaties, called the Basel and Bamako conventions, to ban illegal hazardous waste dumping.

She says reports of illegal dumping were on the decline until the Ivory Coast case.

"The incident in Ivory Coast took many people by surprise," she said.  "It exposed the fact that there are still cause for a concern and attention to the export of hazardous waste going from richer to poorer countries. The Trafigura case raises a lot of questions about whether hazardous waste shipments are just going underground, whether exporters are being more clever."

Nick Nuttall, a spokesman with the United Nations Environment Program, says multiple ship changes and dockings made in the international waste trade make it difficult to police, especially in the world's poorest regions.

"This kind of activity is probably more widespread in Africa and other developing parts of the world than commonly supposed," he noted⁹.  "There are indications that when you have political vacuums or when you have incomplete customs administration for want of funding, that unscrupulous administrators¹⁰ use those loopholes to get rid of hazardous waste from other parts of the world."

Nuttall says the problem is not just the countries that export their waste, but also the countries that accept it.

"You can have as many laws as you want, but if you do not have the capacity to enforce them in the countries concerned, then they are simply paper tigers," he added.

Cases of hazardous waste dumping have tended to involve radioactive waste and chemical sludge, but Greenpeace environmentalist Perivier says the nature of dumping is changing.

"Electronic waste is one of the largest growing forms of waste streams," she added.  "We have seen that some estimates that 75 percent of the electronics sent to Nigeria was junk and ended up being land filled or burned in open air fires."

Perivier says that much of electronic waste, also known as e-waste, contains heavy metals and plastics that are poisonous when burned.

The United Nations estimates close to half a million unwanted computers arrive in Nigeria, each month. Much of this comes from the United States, which has not ratified¹¹ the toxic waste ban treaty.

1 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

2 cargo   

n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物

参考例句：

• The ship has a cargo of about 200 ton.这条船大约有200吨的货物。
• A lot of people discharged the cargo from a ship.许多人从船上卸下货物。

3 hazardous   

adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的

参考例句：

• These conditions are very hazardous for shipping.这些情况对航海非常不利。
• Everybody said that it was a hazardous investment.大家都说那是一次危险的投资。

4 lawsuit   

n.诉讼，控诉

参考例句：

• They threatened him with a lawsuit.他们以诉讼威逼他。
• He was perpetually involving himself in this long lawsuit.他使自己无休止地卷入这场长时间的诉讼。

5 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

6 whatsoever   

adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么

参考例句：

• There's no reason whatsoever to turn down this suggestion.没有任何理由拒绝这个建议。
• All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,do ye even so to them.你想别人对你怎样，你就怎样对人。

7 shipping   

n.船运（发货，运输，乘船）

参考例句：

• We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
• There's a shipping charge of ￡5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。

8 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

9 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

10 administrators   

n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 )；有管理（或行政）才能的人；（由遗嘱检验法庭指定的）遗产管理人；奉派暂管主教教区的牧师

参考例句：

• He had administrators under him but took the crucial decisions himself. 他手下有管理人员，但重要的决策仍由他自己来做。 来自辞典例句
• Administrators have their own methods of social intercourse. 办行政的人有他们的社交方式。 来自汉英文学 - 围城

11 ratified   

v.批准，签认（合约等）( ratify的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The treaty was declared invalid because it had not been ratified. 条约没有得到批准，因此被宣布无效。
• The treaty was ratified by all the member states. 这个条约得到了所有成员国的批准。