International waste trade: environment or business

Abstract

The modern world generates a huge number of different wastes: household, construction, industrial, medical etc. More developed countries generate more waste as a result of economic activity. Such countries have an important need for waste disposal. Since developed countries have strict environmental legislation, waste disposal is expensive and stimulates the need for their removal from the country. Countries around the world classify waste according to many criteria, one of them is its harmfulness. International trade in waste is specific and does not fit into the basic norms of trade in goods and services. The articles are considered the distinctive features of waste trade: the goals of international trade and government regulation, identification of competitive advantages and others. Trade in waste is divided depending on the degree of “utility” of its usefulness, i.e. from the ability to use them as a resource. Trade in “usefulness waste” can be carried out through a market mechanism. The price of such waste includes the cost of disposal of useless residues. Trade in hazardous waste is not effectively regulated by the market mechanism and generates a low price. Trade in hazardous waste poses a particular danger to the global environment. Hazardous waste accumulates in poor countries with low environmental standards. Countries of the world, reaching a higher level of development, stop importing hazardous waste and aggravate the solution to the problem of removing hazardous waste. Trade in waste requires the formation of a general regulatory system and control over the use of environmentally friendly and safe methods. In the absence of the system, uncontrollable centers of pollution will form in the world, and countries importing hazardous waste will manipulate rich countries.