UN Expert Committee recommends global action on outdated DDT-Contaminated Pesticide
(Rome, Italy) A UN technical committee has determined that Dicofol, an outdated DDT-contaminated pesticide should be eliminated globally under the Stockholm Convention, an international treaty that bans the world’s most hazardous chemical pollutants.
The week-long meeting of the Stockholm Convention’s expert committee was held from 17-20th October 2017 and attended by many industry associations and companies involved in the production and use of fluorinated chemicals.
In Rome, the expert committee tackled a recommendation for adding PFOA to the treaty, including possible exemptions for continued uses. PFOA is known as the ‘Teflon chemical’ or C8 and has widely polluted drinking water throughout the world. The Committee began evaluation of the industry’s fluorinated substitute, PFHxS, which has been widely used as an alternative for PFOS.
IPEN joined the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and 17 additional NGOs in a letter to the European Commission to express concerns about conflict of interest in the Stockholm Convention evaluation of PFOA (the “Teflon chemical”). PFOA is used in textiles and fire-fighting foams and to make coatings such as Teflon.
In 2015, the EU nominated PFOA for listing in the Stockholm Convention and agreed to lead the evaluation drafting process. However, instead of carrying out the work in-house, the EU hired an industry consultancy (BiPRO). This resulted in proposals for a sweeping set of loopholes that undermine a global ban. BiPRO’s client list includes companies that make and/or use fluorinated chemicals, including PFOA.
On September 28th and 29th, IPEN Participating Organizations from the Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia (EECCA) region met in Erevan, Armenia. At the meeting, IPEN POs in EECCA discussed IPEN's current and future projects, campaigns and initiatives, as well as the role IPEN EECCA POs will play in these activities. IPEN new initiatives, including Women and Chemicals, Gender Strategy, Women’s Caucus, Ocean Pollution, and Chemicals in Products were on the agenda of the meeting and aroused great interest. Three presentations on gender and endocrine disrupting chemicals, POPs in breast milk and monitoring of heavy metals in food linked the work of NGOs with that of the EECCA scientific community.
LOCAL health and environmental conservations activists are putting pressure on regulators to impose stringent guidelines on locally manufactured and imported children’s toys as studies show that they are harmful.
IPEN, jointly with the European Environmental Bureau, has contributed to the stakeholder consultation of the European Commission’s work on the analysis of the interface between chemicals, products and waste legislation and identification of policy options.
In order to protect people and the environment from the risks posed by hazardous chemicals and in order to safeguard material loops in a circular economy without compromising chemical safety aspects, IPEN and EEB demand legally binding requirements for full transparency on the chemical contents in all constituent components of products together with requirements for information sharing between all stakeholders in supply chains.
