Kerry McCarthy – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Kerry McCarthy on 2016-06-24.

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to stop the illegal export of electronic and other hazardous waste from the UK to Africa.

Rory Stewart

The UK is a Party to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Waste and their Disposal, which sets controls on the shipments of waste from developed to developing countries. This is implemented through the Waste Shipment Regulations and the UK Plan (on import and export of waste) which bans the export of waste for disposal to non-OECD countries.

The UK environment agencies enforce the Regulations in the UK. They have adopted an intelligence-led approach to identify and disrupt the movement of waste intended for illegal export.