Toxics Dispatch No 21

Number 21 March 2004 FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY Global anti-toxic treaty comes IN THIS ISSUE into force – India lags behind 1 LEADER L Global anti-toxic treaty comes into ebruary 17, 2004 was a happy day the convention. The Indian government had force – India lags behind for anyone involved in the fight signed the treaty on 14 May, 2002 but had Fagainst Persistent Organic not ratified it. Chemcials (POPs). France’s ratification of It seems that the Rs 125,000 crore 2 EDITORIAL the Stockholm Convention on this day com- chemical industry has tremendous influence pleted the required 50 signatories for the over the government. The industry had pub- 3 FEATURES Convention to become a legally binding licly asked the government to refrain from L Suryapet: A municipality re-engineers International Convention. ratifying the treaty, according to a press re- SWM Now the Convention will come into force lease of the Indian Chemical Manufactur- L after a 90 day countdown on 17 May, 2004, ers Association issued prior to the Seventh ITC collaborates with NGO for Zero as per Article 26 of the Convention. The Session of the Intergovernmental Negotiat- Waste Management treaty is not only about ridding the world of ing Committee in July 2003. L Hunger, Water, Survival: theme for a a certain class of toxic chemicals but also Our government should see the writing unique film festival about promoting sustainable development. on the wall, and face the future with more This Convention with its ‘sisters’ the Basel reality. It has let down workers in chemical Convention and the Rotterdam Convention factories and the people of India whose 7 UPDATES provides a model for international environ- heatlh and quality of lives is at risk from L White asbestos merchants subvert mental governance and for collaboration POPs. government’s stance amongst multilateral environmental agree- Continued on page 2 L CDM being used to ments. This has been prepared in the con- text of a concept of wastes and chemicals promote burn technologies conventions cluster. in South Asia Though France’s decision needs to be L Unsafe injections in India lauded, India has succumbed to the pres- sure of industries which will be affected by 9 L News 10 L Resources 11 L Forum 12 L Factfile Toxics Dispatch No 21 td21-eng.pmd 1 5/7/04, 3:13 PM Black Protecting ourselves Continued from page 1 Studies by the United States Environmental Protection Agency from a cleaner world! (USEPA) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer urope is cleaning up. Through a series of new policy (IARC) clearly show that workers in chemical factories are at great Eand legislative initiatives – some of which are so pro- risk of liver, lung and brain cancers, skin tumours and the dissolv- gressive that they even have the Bush Administration wor- ing of bones at the tip of their fingers. ried – the European Union, through its Commission, is re- The treaty seeks to control the production, use, import, export defining ‘clean.’ However, as they get rid of toxics like mer- and disposal of these toxic chemicals, and has established tough cury, pesticides, asbestos, plastics and electronic wastes, will international controls on an initial cluster of 12 chemicals, of which they all end up now in the Indian subcontinent? most are subject to an immediate ban. This ‘rogues gallery’ of It is already happening, and we must ensure that this will chemicals as per the treaty – also called the ‘dirty dozen’ – com- not continue to take place. Paradoxically, we still refuse to prises of aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, protect ourselves by not ratifying legislations like the POPs mirex, toxaphene, polychlorinated biphenols (PCBs), treaty or the Basel Ban, which will protect our public health hexachlorobenzene, dioxins and furans. A POP Review Commit- from such events. tee is yet to consider additional chemicals for the POP list on a Though over the years, Europe has set the pace for how regular basis to ensure that the treaty is responsive to new scientific a ‘clean environment’ is defined, the difference between what findings. Among the dirty dozen only DDT, PCBs and uninten- is clean and not clean is growing rapidly. For example, while tional POPs — that is, dioxins and furans — are relevant to In- we in India do not even have an air emission standard for dia, according to the March 2001 issue of Parivesh, the newsletter mercury from thermal power plants (Indian coal combus- of the Central Pollution Control Board. tion spews mercury all over our agricultural fields), Europe As the name ‘Persistent Organic Pollutants’ implies, once in- has reduced its emissions by over 50 per cent over the past troduced into the environment, either intentionally by industry, as three decades, and is gradually moving to natural gas. Simi- an agrochemical, or unintentionally as a by-product, these chemi- larly, when the mercury based chlor-alkali plants close in cals persist in the environment. They can be atmospherically trans- Europe in 2006, will the 12,000 odd tons of mercury cur- ported to sites far from the site of their introduction – sometimes rently contained be released on the world market, and be across the globe through sea and wind currents. The high solubil- mopped up by leaky Indian chlorine and thermometer plants? ity in non-aqueous media such as fats and oils leads to their high With the new European WEEE directive coming into bioaccumulation in fatty tissue where concentrations can become force this year, which mandates producer responsibility in magnified by up to 70,000 times the background levels. Fish, preda- items like electronic waste and legislates collection and recy- tory birds, mammals, and humans are high up the food chain, and cling, we may see an influx of such hazardous wastes into therefore, they absorb the greatest concentrations of POPs. The India. In fact, we already are. In another far-reaching initia- pollution levels are so high that every human in the world today tive started in October 2003: REACH, involving registra- carries traces of these chemicals in their bodies. POPs are also tion and chemical substitution in products, Europe has threat- highly stable compounds that can last for years (usually decades) ened to put the global chemical industry in the dock, since before breaking down. They circulate globally through a process over 1,00,000 chemicals are being reviewed for health im- known as the ‘grasshopper effect’. POPs released in one part of pacts. It is doubtful if Europe has the monitoring capacity to the world can, through a repeated process of evaporation and depo- ensure that their poisons are not exported, despite their in- sition, be transported through the atmosphere to regions far away. tent to do so. Hence, while on the one hand the Bush ad- Most POPs of international concern are synthetic organo-chlo- ministration is busy diluting environmental norms, which rine compounds, that is, they contain carbon and chlorine. Some includes export controls, which in any case permit such ex- of these chemicals have industrial application, such as the ports from the US, the people of Europe are demanding to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and some are the unintentional be squeaky clean and that too through a ‘prevention is better by-products of industrial operations. than cure’ approach. But neither in the US nor in Europe Governments would now be required to pursue a rapid start to is there a public consciousness that there are other people action under the treaty when they meet for the first session of the too who exist on planet earth, and taking garbage out of Conference of the Parties to the Convention (COP 1) in Punta their systems should not mean putting it in ours! del Este, Uruguay in early 2005. This COP would also establish No longer can we isolate ourselves from this globalisation a committee for evaluating other chemicals and pesticides that could of toxics and wastes. It is up to civil society to be vigilant and be added to the initial target list of 12 POPs. ensure that we do not become the last dumping ground in Another key goal for the COP will be to finalise guidelines for the world. For a start, then, India can ratify the POPs treaty promoting ‘best environmental practices’ and ‘best available tech- and Basel Ban, the one piece of international legislation, niques’ that can reduce or eliminate releases of dioxins and furans that will protect our shores from environmental injustice. (perhaps the most toxic of all the POPs) from a wide range of Ravi Agarwal industrial and other sources. Most of the 12 chemicals will be banned immediately. How- Toxics Dispatch No 21 2 td21-eng.pmd 2 5/7/04, 3:13 PM Black through selling recyclables. For this to happen, consensus was reached to make primary segregation at the Suryapet: A household level compulsory. Household segregation required widespread public municipality re- participation. It was realised that such participation could best be obtained through engineers SWM an early, and effective, public education pro- rom a small town, spread over a mea- gramme. In January 2003, the municipal- Fgre 34 square kilometers, comes a story ity launched an extensive public education that could transform the entire sub-conti- programme designed and initiated by the nent. municipal staff in partnership with Suryapet, situated in the Nalgonda dis- DWRCA. trict of Andhra Pradesh, with a population The awareness program had in its IEC ever, the use of DDT for disease vector con- of 1,03,000 is another medium-sized non- toolkit initiatives including street corner trol under World Health Organization descript town dotting the urban landscape meetings, street plays, distribution of pam- guidelines is considered an acceptable pur- of Andhra Pradesh.

Load more