The workshop was organized at the behest of the Basel Convention Regional Centre in Beijing, and the Secretariat of the Basel Convention; under the auspices of the "Basel Convention on the Trans-boundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal".

The 160-State Basel Convention was first adopted in 1989, under the initiative of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP); and enjoys the distinction of being the world's most comprehensive environmental agreement on hazardous and other wastes.

The countries represented at the Tianjin workshop were China, India, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. In addition, resource persons from Canada, China, Japan, USA, and the Secretariat of the Basel Convention were also present. The workshop received financial support from Australia, Canada and Japan.

Speaking at the occasion, Klaus Topfer, executive director, UNEP, said, "A few decades ago, very few families in wealthier countries and communities owned a personal computer or other electronic devices. Today, PCs are becoming widespread in homes, and are ubiquitous throughout the business world and in organizations of every kind. The emerging issue of 'e-wastes' needs to be tackled urgently, as the production and use of PCs continues to rise dramatically."

Thanks to rapid industrialization, several developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region are required to access large quantities of secondary raw materials. As a result, these countries end-up becoming the main importers of "e-wastes" generated across the globe.

Importers of "e-wastes" do stand to gain in terms of income generated from re-furbishing used PCs and dissembling obsolete PCs, monitors and circuit boards.

PCs and printers on their last legs are considered good sources of sophisticated metals, plastics, etc; however they typically contain hazardous substances like lead, cadmium and mercury. As such workers in "e-waste" operations are exposed to dangerous working conditions, and might face huge health and safety risks.

The Tianjin workshop was conducted to discuss these problems, and it brought-forth a variety of potential solutions.

Some of the suggested measures were: dismantling can be made safer by incorporating safety concerns at the design stage itself; manufacturers can be given responsibility for managing wastes resulting from the equipment they sell; national/legislative framework for monitoring and controlling trans-boundary movement of hazardous material can be strengthened; authoritative data can be produced on "e-waste" streams plus current technical practices can be evaluated.

Currently, member governments of the Basel Convention are busy developing a "Strategic Plan", comprising among other issues the environmentally sound management of electronic wastes world-wide.

This plan will be finalized at the sixth meeting of the Parties to the Convention, which is scheduled to be held at Geneva in Switzerland from December 9 to 13.