Return To Sender

WHEN IT COMES TO GETTING RID OF LIFE'S UNWANTed gifts, fruitcakes and Father's Day ties are best fed to the dog, accidentally lost or -- a method favored by many Americans -- simply passed along to friends. None of these options sufficed, however, when 420 tons of German pesticides were "given" to Romania by a waste-disposal contractor who said the cargo was part of an aid package. In fact, the toxic mess was dumped in the Romanian town of Sibiu. Embarrassed, the German government will begin shipping the chemicals back this week.

Romania is hardly the only beneficiary of such German largesse. Thousands of tons of waste have been dumped, legally and illegally, in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. While Bonn has spent more than $1 billion cleaning up industrial toxins bequeathed by the former G.D.R., stringent recycling laws have built up a mountain of ordinary refuse that is difficult and expensive to dispose of at home. As a result, Germany has become the world's leading exporter of trash.