You need a safety net of conditions – Not just a facility

Just some of the conditions and infrastructure you need to have in place to make sure a hazardous waste recycling facility operates safely and responsibly:-

1. State of the art health and safety training for workers, so they understand the materials they are working with, their potential dangers, how to protect themselves from exposure, and what to do when something goes wrong.

2. Strong environmental protection laws against polluting the air, water, land.

3. Strong worker protection and right-to know laws for recycling workers, to protect health and safety.

4. Vigorous enforcement of environmental and worker protection laws and monitoring of facilities managing toxic materials. This includes staff that will inspect, evaluate, report, and if needed take meaningful corrective action.

5. Workers and communities need to have the clear right to seek legal redress if violations/exposure occurs (liability or tort laws);

6. Maintenance systems, including resources and accountability for assuring ongoing maintenance of the imported technology, including the safety equipment. It’s one thing to have a “high tech” facility when the doors open, and another to be able to maintain it to keep running at the highest standard.

7. Fair wages, worker benefits and effective worker compensation system;

8. Whistleblower laws. Realistic options for workers to be “whistleblowers” against polluters – or other avenues that might sound the alarm to prevent a situation where workers don’t simply endure horrible conditions out of fear;

9. Worker support institutions to protect workers’ rights;

10. Safe facilities to handle the material you can’t completely process at the facility. Smelters all have some residual wastes – the parts it can’t melt or burn. The country also needs to have hazardous waste storage/disposal/further recycling facilities (e.g. hazardous waste landfills) to safely sequester residuals from all hazardous waste processing or high efficiency mercury retorts;

11. Secure import and transportation systems that can ensure that materials imported for processing actually make it to the intended destinations, and are not redirected along the way to low-tech or illegal processors;

12. Adequate medical and occupational clinics capable of identifying and treating toxic exposures;

13. Emergency response systems, including fire and ambulance service, in case of accidents and fires.

14. Effective capacity for toxic clean-ups.

15. Absence of corruption. If you have the laws, but the country has corrupt officials who take payoffs to ignore the laws, then of course, no real enforcement will occur. In countries with low wages, the pressure from corruption is difficult to overcome.