Hazardous waste across borders: the Basel Convention and the four other wastes it names

Background

The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was adopted by a Conference of Plenipotentiaries at Basel in Switzerland on 22 March 1989 and entered into force in 1992. It covers hazardous wastes, which it defines by their origin and by their composition and characteristics, and it separately names four other wastes: household waste, incinerator ash, certain plastic wastes and certain electronic and electrical wastes. The convention's subject is therefore not waste in general but waste that crosses a national frontier, and the control it applies is on that movement and on the disposal that follows it.