Overview

The first versions of the Technical Guidelines on specially engineered landfill (D5) and on incineration on land (D10) were adopted at COP 3, in 1995. Both documents are available on the publications page.

In the work programme of the Open-ended Working Group for the biennium 2016-2017 (decision BC-12/19, annex), the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention included consideration of whether the technical guidelines on incineration on land (D10), the technical guidelines on specially engineered landfill (D5) and the technical guidelines on hazardous waste physico-chemical treatment (D9) and biological treatment (D8) should be updated.

Additionally, by decision BC-12/1, on the follow-up to the Indonesian-Swiss country-led initiative to improve the effectiveness of the Basel Convention, the Conference of the Parties requested the Secretariat, subject to available resources, to undertake an inventory and categorize existing Basel Convention documents related to environmentally sound management, under the guidance of the expert working group on environmentally sound management, for the consideration of the Open-ended Working Group at its tenth meeting.

In response to decision BC-12/1, the Secretariat developed an inventory and categorization of existing Basel Convention documents related to environmentally sound management and submitted it to the expert working group for comment. In parallel, the Government of Canada offered to develop further the inventory and categorization, taking into account the comments received by the expert working group, and to produce an analysis on that basis. The inventory, categorization and analysis were submitted to the Open-ended Working Group at its tenth meeting, at which the Working Group in its decision OEWG-10/2 requested the Secretariat to develop an online survey to assess the relevance and utility of the Basel Convention documents related to environmentally sound management and to prepare a report on the survey results for consideration by the Conference of the Parties at its thirteenth meeting.

At its tenth meeting, the Open-ended Working Group agreed that the survey mentioned in paragraph 3 above would contain questions on which technical guidelines under the Basel Convention should be updated or not, including those mentioned in decision BC-12/19, i.e., technical guidelines on incineration on land (D10), on specially engineered landfill (D5), and on hazardous waste physico-chemical treatment (D9) and biological treatment (D8), and recommended that the Conference of the Parties at its next meeting consider the possible updating of the guidelines, taking into account the survey responses.

At its thirteenth meeting, by its decision BC-13/6, the Conference of the Parties (COP), decided that that the technical guidelines on incineration on land (D10) and on specially engineered landfill (D5) should be updated.

At its fourteenth meeting, by its decision BC-14/6, the COP extended the mandate of the small intersessional working group (SIWG) on the D5 and D10 technical guidelines, and agreed that the scope of the technical guidelines on incineration on land (D10) should be extended to also address incineration as covered by the operation “use as a fuel (other than in direct incineration) or other means to generate energy” (R1).

At its fifteenth meeting, by its decision BC-15/8, the COP adopted the revised versions of the two technical guidelines, which are available on the section of "Technical Guidelines" under publications page

(a) Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound incineration of hazardous wastes and other wastes as covered by disposal operations D10 and R1; 
(b) Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound disposal of hazardous wastes and other wastes in specially engineered landfill (D5);