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A Toxics-Free Future

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Highlights Front Roll

Plastics, Plastic Waste, and Chemicals in Africa
New Video: Plastics Poisoning Our Health
Promoting Stronger Protections on Chemicals at BRS COP
How the UNEA Plastics Resolutions Relates to Chemicals and Health
Plastic Poisons the Circular Economy
Plastic Waste Fuels: policy spreads toxic trade across Asia

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In the run-up to the 2nd United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA2), which will take place 23 - 27 May, 2016 in Nairobi, Kenya, IPEN has released its Views of Selected Issues at UNEA2. This document is a summary statement of some IPEN views about issues that will be taken up at the UNEA2, including: stakeholder engagement, sound management of chemicals and wastes, lead and cadmium, lead battery recycling, sustainable consumption and production, and marine plastic debris and micro plastics.

This document and additional information about IPEN's activities at UNEA2 can be found on this IPEN webpage. 

IPEN Participating Organizations PAN- Ethiopia; CREPD- Cameroon; CJGEA- Kenya; and AGENDA- Tanzania have jointly issued a press release with Oeko-Institut on the health and environmental hazards facing many Africans from recovery of lead from waste batteries, the practice commonly referred to as Used Lead Acid Battery (ULAB) recycling. Partners in four African countries and Germany made a study on the recycling practices involved, which was found to cause fatal lead poisoning to the workers in the recycling facilities and surrounding communities:

Freiburg/Berlin: When the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) meets in Nairobi on Monday, its agenda will include one of the new and major health and environmental hazards facing many African countries today: the recovery of lead from waste batteries. In sub-Saharan countries, in particular, unsound recycling practices cause severe and even fatal lead poisoning of the people working in and living around small and industrial-scale lead smelters, including children. This is just one of the findings of the broad cooperation project initiated by Oeko-Institut that involved African environmental organisations in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.

IPEN Participating Organization National Toxics Network (NTN) has just released a new report, "Contaminants in Marine Plastic Pollution, the new toxic time- bomb."

The United Nations Environment Programme called marine plastics the “new toxic time- bomb.” Marine plastic is not only entangling and drowning wildlife, it is being mistaken for food and ingested along with its toxic contaminants. Marine plastics, and, in particular microplastics, provide a global transport medium for the most toxic chemicals into the marine food chain and ultimately, to humans.

IPEN supports the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal in its efforts to petition the U.S. White House to uphold international law and stop shielding Dow Chemical from accountability for corporate crimes in Bhopal, India. 

On December 3rd, 1984, in the middle of the night, thousands of people were gassed to death because of a catastrophic chemical leak at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India. More than 150,000 people were left severely disabled, and 22,000 people have since died of their injuries.  For these reasons the Bhopal gas disaster is widely acknowledged as the world's worst-ever industrial disaster. Find out more about the tragedy on the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal's website.

IPEN endorses a new campaign by Participating Organizations Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) and Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL) that aims to ensure that European Union - United States trade talks do not undermine EU chemicals legislation.
 
The United States and European Union are negotiating a new trade agreement called the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). This agreement is a threat to the EU’s ability to protect people from toxic chemical exposure.
 

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(Geneva) – In today’s Declaration on Waste Containing Nanomaterials, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), ECOS, and the Oeko-Institut emphasize the importance of adopting and implementing preventive measures to protect people and the environment from possible hazards of manufactured nanomaterials (MNMs) in waste streams. With the toxicity of nanomaterials still largely unknown, a tight control of waste containing MNMs is crucial.

IPEN Participating Organization Ecological Alert and Recovery-Thailand (EARTH) recently organized a seminar entitled "Good Governance in Sustainable Waste Management: the case of Chiang Rak Yai Waste-to-Energy Project" in collaboration with Puey Ungphakorn School of Development Studies and the Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology.

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