The Waste Act specifies that the NWMS should give effect to South Africa’s international obligations in terms of waste management. The evolving system of international declarations, agreements and treaties has provided an important context for the evolution of South African environmental policy in general, and waste management policy in particular.
The modern system of global environmental governance is to a large degree a consequence of the Rio Earth Summit and Agenda 21, which amongst others, advocated four major waste-related programmes: minimizing wastes; maximizing environmentally sound waste reuse and recycling; promoting environmentally sound waste disposal and treatment; and extending waste service coverage. The Summit set in motion a series of multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs) dealing with land-based sources of marine pollution, water quality, regional trans-boundary movement of hazardous waste, the management of toxic chemicals, and the trans-boundary movement of radioactive waste, amongst others.
In relation to hazardous products and waste, there are four principal conventions that apply. The Rotterdam Convention’s procedure for Prior Informed Consent became legally binding in 2004, and it promotes and enforces transparency in the importation of hazardous chemicals; the Basel Convention, adopted in 1989, addresses the need to control the transboundary movement of hazardous wastes and their disposal, setting out the categorisation of hazardous waste and the policies between member countries; the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), which entered into force in 2004, requires that member countries phase these out and prevent their import or export. The International Convention on Chemicals Management is the most recent of these related conventions (February 2006) and adopted the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management.
In relation to pollution of water, South Africa has acceded to a number of conventions which address dumping at sea and prescribe measures to prevent waste on land contaminating the seas and waterways. These wastes include oil, solid waste, nuclear waste and debris from landfill sites.
Several obligations exist around measures to protect the ozone layer and mitigate climate change. One of the roles that waste management can play in achieving these obligations is the reduction and efficient management of gases released from waste at landfill sites.
The South African government is required to put measures in place to give effect to the provisions of the MEAs to which the country has acceded. The Waste Act contains a number of measures that are necessary for implementing these international obligations. The NWMS must seek to integrate requirements emanating from international instruments into domestic responses to waste management.