The 2012-13 business plan for the Basel Convention Regional Centre for the Caribbean Region calls for training programmes, a needs assessment to determine what Caribbean SIDS need to comply with multilateral chemical and waste agreements, and special projects on waste oils and e-waste.
4 April 2012: The Basel Convention Regional Centre for the Caribbean Region has submitted its business plan for the 2012-13 biennium to the Secretariat of the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal (Basel Convention).
The plan was developed after consultation with stakeholders in the public, private and civil society sectors throughout the Caribbean and submitted to the Basel Secretariat on 2 April 2012. It identifies priority training programmes, technology transfer projects and other capacity building activities that require over $4.5 million over a three-year period.
The plan identifies three targets for training activities: customs officers to allow them to clamp down on illegal dumping and to control the import/export of materials regulated by the Basel Convention, the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) (Stockholm Convention), the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (Rotterdam Convention), and the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer; landfill managers and operators to allow them to implement waste segregation, recovery and recycling projects; and policy makers and legislators on policies and legislative frameworks to enable an integrated approach to waste management.
The Centre’s plan envisions conducting a needs assessment for Caribbean small island developing States (SIDS) regarding national policy and legislative framework for compliance with conventions and protocols on waste materials. It also calls for developing partnerships with academic institutions, business and trade groups, government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the region to provide training, technology transfer and research to support capacity building for environmentally sustainable approaches to waste management. The plan also envisages holding a workshop on business opportunities to be created from integrated waste management at a national scale for entrepreneurs.
Two specific projects are envisioned under the plan, both in the Centre’s host country of Trinidad and Tobago, on: waste oil re-refining, disposal and destruction; and e-waste refurbishment, disassembly and recycling. In both cases the objective is to use it as a demonstration project for technology transfer to other Caribbean islands. [BCRC-Caribbean Release]