• Under new rules, trash importers and exporters will need to agree on how to handle hazardous shipments.
• New rules amending the bloc’s 2006 Waste Shipment Regulation will completely ban exports of unsorted plastics to less industrialized nations outside the OECD.
• The moves follow China’s 2018 ban on plastic imports and statements from environmentalists that waste was ending up in other Asian nations, such as Malaysia, and then being dumped into ocean waters.
  
• The new rules, effective from January 1, also govern plastics shipments within the 27-member EU.

The overarching objective of the Basel Convention is to protect human health and the environment against the adverse effects of hazardous wastes. Its scope of application covers a wide range of wastes defined as “hazardous wastes” based on their origin and/or composition and their characteristics, as well as two types of wastes defined as “other wastes” - household waste and incinerator ash. 

Aims and provisions

The provisions of the Convention center around the following principal aims: 

• the reduction of hazardous waste generation and the promotion of environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes, wherever the place of disposal;
• the restriction of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes except where it is perceived to be in accordance with the principles of environmentally sound management; and
• a regulatory system applying to cases where transboundary movements are permissible.