Jim Puckett

Jim is the co-founder and Executive Director of Basel Action Network, where he provides strategic oversight and implements and expands our programs. As an activist for over 25 years, his work on toxic waste and toxic waste trade has helped control pollution, safeguard fragile ecosystems from bio-accumulating toxins, protect the world’s poor from health hazards, and reuse the Earth’s limited resources. He has been a chief proponent of just international policies within the United Nations Basel Convention since its inception in 1989. As the only person to have attended every Conference of the Parties meeting, He supports delegates in drafting, approving, and implementing policies that protect people from the global trade of toxic waste. His assistance was crucial for creating regional waste trade agreements, such as the Bamako Convention, Central American Agreement, Waigani Treaty, and the Cartagena Convention Waste Trade Protocol. He has traveled the world researching, speaking, writing, and producing films. He was the first to investigate and expose the export of electronic waste (e-waste). BAN’s 2002 film, Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia, was the first to shine a spotlight on e-waste trade and transformed an unknown dumping practice into a well-recognized, global issue. He has since overseen creation of the e-Stewards Certification Program, which certifies electronics recyclers to the industry’s gold standard for environmental and occupational health and safety protection. Prior to establishing BAN, as Toxics Director for Greenpeace International, his regional campaigns were instrumental in generating public and government support for equitable trade policies throughout Europe. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Speech and Filmmaking from the University of Oregon.