People worldwide are thinking more and more about their garbage and how to reduce its impact on the environment. But we all learn very little about how hazardous waste is managed at the industrial level.

In fact, the exact size of this global trade is unknown. The most comprehensive mechanism monitoring the cross-border movements of hazardous waste is a UN treaty, namely the Basel Convention. Still, figures on hazardous waste generation and imports/exports are far from being accurate and complete.

Even though 183 of the 195 sovereign states recognized worldwide are member-parties in the convention, fewer than 50 percent report to the Convention’s Secretariat every year - as they are expected to - the type and amount of hazardous wastes and other wastes they have exported and imported to and from other countries. In addition, the U.S., one of the largest generators of hazardous waste, is among those thirteen countries where the treaty is not even in force.

On the basis of the reports received by the Basel Convention’s Secretariat, every year at least 8 million to 10 million metric tons of hazardous waste are shipped across borders to be disposed of or recycled. This waste is mainly residue from industrial waste disposal operations, waste mineral oils, and lead and/or lead compounds.

Much is unknown about hazardous waste exported from more to less developed countries, represented by about 0,7% of the overall exports reported between 2007 and 2013. In the whole African continent, for instance, an average of only 15 states (out of 54) actually reported their movements for 2012, 2013, 2014.

In 1995, at a meeting of the Conference of the Parties, an amendment - also known as the Ban Amendment - was adopted to stop exports of hazardous waste from the 34 member-nations of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Union, Liechtenstein and all other states. The amendment is not yet in force.