Brussels, 25/06/2003 (Agence Europe) - Last week the European Commission unveiled a regulation enabling the EU to ratify to international agreements on the elimination of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). These international agreements, the Stockholm Convention and the UNECE Protocol on POPs aim at phasing out the world's most toxic chemicals by controlling their production, use, import, export, emissions and disposal.
Of all the pollutants released into the environment every year by human activity, POPs are among the most dangerous. They are highly toxic, causing an array of adverse effects, notably death, disease, and birth defects, among humans and animals. Specific effects can include cancer, allergies and hypersensitivity, damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems, reproductive disorders, and disruption of the immune system. These highly stable compounds can last for years or decades before breaking down. The UNECE Protocol and the Stockholm Convention involve measures against 16 POPs (12 in the Convention and the same 21 plus four others in the less stringent Protocol) with a view to controlling their manufacture, use and import and provide information for the public.
The Commission proposal for implementation measures (regulation on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), amending Directives 79/117/EEC and 96/59/ECE) transposes into EU law the rules set out in the international agreements (which are in the process of being ratified before they can come into force), and “goes further than the international obligations” explained European Environment Commissioner Margot Wallström. The regulation bans the production and use of products that are granted derogations in the international agreements, DDT for example (a pesticide still used in many developing countries to combat malaria) and applies the more stringent Stockholm Convention to the sixteen chemicals targetted in the UNECE Protocol.
“The forthcoming REACH legislation on registration, evaluation and authorisation of chemicals will later on take this part over and strengthen the EU control measures on all persistent, bioaccumulating and toxic chemicals,” explained the Commissioner. The REACH system could in fact be used to prevent the manufacture of new Persistent Organic Pollutants.