the toxic truth - Greenpeace

the toxic truth
to no avail – the Basel Convention and the
European Waste Shipment Regulation do
not appear to have been considered at all,
despite the fact that both refer to the export of
hazardous waste.
Financial pressure stronger
than the rule of law
Investigations into the events in Amsterdam
make clear that financial considerations
played an important role in the decisions
taken to allow the waste to be pumped
back on to the Probo Koala and to allow the
departure of the ship with the hazardous
waste on board. Trafigura had signalled to APS
that any delay in the Probo Koala’s schedule,
which would cause the ship to miss its
scheduled arrival and stay in Paldiski, would
cost US$250,000. 538 When the authorities
initially did not give permission to reload
the toxic waste on to the Probo Koala, the
director of APS, fearing that the ship would
leave and that APS would have to pay for the
extra processing costs, complained to the
Department of Environment and Buildings
(DMB) on the evening of 3 July. 539
Financial concerns, then, added pressure
to already difficult proceedings. The
messy situation soon became even more
complicated when APS sought an injunction
over the Probo Koala’s bunkers (which were
owned by Trafigura Beheer BV, who had
chartered the ship). They took this action as
security, in case APS was forced to pay for
the treatment of the waste, since Trafigura
had refused to pay the extra costs of this.
The local authorities then intervened to try
to convince Trafigura to give APS a bank
guarantee for treating the waste. Trafigura
refused. 540
The Hulshof Committee report noted that the
“idea of urgency” played a role in the decision
of the authorities that there were no grounds
for prohibiting reloading reloading. “The
Committee presumes that the idea of urgency
was inspired by financial considerations.” 541
The Hulshof report concluded: “Regardless
of the chosen solution, civil servants of
various authorities are recommended to take
strong measures to ensure that financial
considerations will not stand in the way of
making pure and prompt decisions.” While
various civil servants were confused as to
which legislation applied in this case, the
pressure put on them because of financial
considerations, and their submission to that
pressure “clouded [their] perception with
regard to the core of the matter”. 542
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Chapter 9