Stockholm Convention to take final call on 5 Persistent Organic Pollutants
- September 30, 2022
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Stockholm Convention to take final call on 5 Persistent Organic Pollutants
Subject :Environment
Context: The 18th meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee of the Stockholm Convention is taking place this week in Rome.
Details:
- The 18th meeting of the Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP) Review Committee (POPRC-18) to the Stockholm Convention has included five more chemicals in its agenda.
- The listed chemicals include a pesticide, a flame retardant and some plastic stabilising substances.
- Three of the listed chemicals — chlorpyrifos, chlorinated paraffin beyond prescribed standards and long-chain perfluoro carboxylic acids — were already nominated at the 17th meeting (POPRC-17) in January this year.
- Experts will determine if these chemicals are POPs which demand global action due to their adverse effects on human health and the environment.
- Their draft risk profiles will be adopted and global action will be warranted if they fall into the hazardous chemicals category.
- These chemicals will then be elevated for the third review stage (Annex-F) or risk management evaluation.
- Socio-economic considerations associated with possible control measures are evaluated at this stage. Thereafter, they will be considered for recommendation to the Conference of the Parties to list them under the Stockholm Convention.
- Two chemicals — dechlorane plus, a flame retardant and UV-328, a stabiliser used in some personal care products — which qualified for risk management evaluation at POPRC-17 will be evaluated at this session.
- POPRC-18 aims to list each of these chemicals in Annex A (elimination), B (restriction) and/or C (unintended release) of the Stockholm Convention.
India’s resistance:
- The United Nations Environment Programme’s proposal to list chlorpyrifos as POP was resisted by India. Still, chlorpyrifos got nominated as Persistent organic pollutants.
- Chlorpyrifos is not a carcinogen and its concentrations are low.
- India had also opposed the decision to list flame retardant dechlorane plus.
- Chlorpyrifos was registered under the Insecticide Act of 1968 since 1977 and Anupam Verma Committee recommended its review for continued use in 2015.
- China and India are among the largest producers of chlorpyrifos. Nearly 48 per cent of chlorpyrifos or 24,000 tonnes was produced in India. Globally, some 50,000 tonnes of chlorpyrifos is being used annually, according to estimates by the China Crop Protection Industry Association.
- Chlorpyrifos was approved for agricultural use in 2021, which includes its use as a pesticide against pests affecting Bengal gram, rice and cotton.
- It is one of the ten pesticides banned by Punjab and Haryana governments in August 2022.
- Chlorpyrifos is approved for 18 crops in India, while it was being used for 23 crops.
- The Stockholm Convention has listed 31 chemicals as of December 2020. This list is likely to expand further amid evidence pointing towards the health burden of hazardous chemicals and pesticides.
Why ban is important?
Acute pesticide poisoning is an ongoing major global public health challenge, with about 385 million cases of unintentional acute pesticide poisoning and 11,000 deaths every year, according to a global study.