The only thing that the Basel Convention does is infringe trade in scrap (which was not "waste" when the Convention was first written but later became a concern as a "loophole") between the "rich" (OECD) and "poor" (not OECD) people.
Bring back the Negro Leagues to Make Recycling Great Again???
Because it certainly allows every Malaysian or Indonesian plastic recycler to buy whatever they want from the 75% of the world that is "not OECD." The pictures, however sad, do not show anything not explicitly allowed by Basel Convention.
The Convention just advocates that poor people can buy from other poor people, but they cannot buy from rich people. Rich People (OECD) can sell used stuff to other rich people, poor people can recycle stuff from other poor people.
NO ACTIVITY IS CHALLEGED. Only IDENTITIES (nationality) are profiled.
It is purely segregation sold as a moral quality. And fortunately, the Fair Trade Recycling board member Emmanuel Nyaletey will be on the panel to ask these questions to the audience... next to Jim Puckett of Basel Action Network next Wednesday in Orlando.
