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a paragraph of that Annex provides that the prohibition on dumping of 

 Annex I substances does not apply to svibstances which are "rapidly rendered 

 harmless by physical, chemical or biological processes in the sea" and 

 which do not make marine organisms unpalatable or endanger the health 

 of humans or domestic animals. Annex I, Par. 8. Incineration at sea 

 is likely to produce wastes that are either completely neutralized by sea' 

 water (HCl) or are present in such small quantities that the specified 

 harms would not ordinarily occur. Third, the prohibition on dumping Annex 

 I substances does not apply to the dumping of certain substances — includ- 

 ing mercury and cadmium compounds, organohalogen compounds, persistent plas- 

 tics or synthetics, or oil mixtures — which are contained only as "trace 

 contaminants". Incineration of prohibited wastes at sea would, in addi- 

 tion to providing virtually complete elimination of the organohalogens , 

 probably result in only small amounts of these other prohibited substances. 

 It was not clear, furthermore, how the notion of "trace contciminants" in 

 the Convention should have been applied to substances considered for incin- 

 eration, i.e., whether the wastes themselves should be considered or the 

 wastes as transformed during incineration and dispersed through an atmos- 

 pheric plume. (It was ultimately decided that combustible substances should 

 be considered in their plume densities but that incombustibles like cadmium 

 and mercury, which would be delivered to the ocean as particulates, should 

 be evaluated in terms of their initial concentrations in the waste.) 



The device of amending the Annexes to define more clearly the meaming 

 of the Convention's prohibitions in relation to incineration enabled the 

 parties to the Convention to bring such operations within effective regu- 

 lation without having to resolve in detail the underlying question of 



