Toxic waste-see information I sent - Essay Example

the December 3, 1984 incident in Bhopal wherein 3,000 residents were immediately killed after an industrial accident and produced toxic wastes that continued to cause adverse effects to the residents of the said city. In the same manner, this paper would look into the actions of the government in trying to solve these problems and why they are always blamed for their inefficiency and apathy when it comes to environmental problems. On September 11, 2000, the environmental group, Greenpeace blamed the Indian government for its failure to protect the country from being a dumping ground for toxic wastes (Bbc.co.uk 1).

According to the same group, industrialized nations such as Germany, the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway all contribute in the exportation of their industrial wastes and hazardous materials to India. These include the following: (1) zinc ash; (2) lead waste; (3) used batteries; and finally, (4) metal scraps. BBC.co.uk (1) says that these toxic wastes continue to enter the country despite the ban implemented by the Indian Supreme Court back in 1997 due to the country’s lack of mechanism that could help in the enforcement of these laws.

Aside from blaming the inefficiency of the government in dealing with environmental problems, Greenpeace, in BBC.co.uk (1) also blames the exporting country governments in taking advantage of the limitations of the India’s regulatory structure, thus continuing to export more toxic wastes to the country, Baynham (1) also recognized the inability of the Indian government to enforce laws to help in preventing the toxic wastes mentioned above from entering the country. In fact, India is a signatory of various international laws such as the Basel Convention which aims to curb the trade of toxic materials and the Stockholm Convention Persistent Organic Pollutants which says that landfills are not proper disposal sites of PCB wastes.

The aforementioned is said to have