What is the problem?
For more
than a hundred years, halogenated organic compounds were in wide use in agriculture
and industry. The popularity of these chemicals was derived from their
stability and resistance to environmental degradation. They were used as
pesticides, insecticides or fungicides; cooling and insulating fluids; flame
retardants; solvents; and pharmaceuticals; but also produced involuntarily in
natural and human-made fires.
In the 1970s, the international community started to understand the negative global impacts on public health and the environment by these chemicals, now referred to as Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). POPs were found to be globally mobile and can be found even in areas where they never have been used. Also, they are exceptionally stable over long time periods, and accumulate to high concentrations in the fatty tissue of living organisms including humans. Their health effects include cancer, allergies and hypersensitivity, damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems, reproductive disorders, and disruptions of the immune and endocrine systems.
The 2001 Stockholm Convention on POPs established a global ban on the further use of POP chemicals and commits its member states to dispose of remaining amounts. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) serves as the financial mechanism of the Convention and is to provide assistance to developing countries and countries with economies in transition to reduce and eliminate releases of POPs into the environment. To implement the work, the GEF collaborates with a series of partner organisations including FAO.
With regard to residual amounts of POPs wastes, the former Soviet Union region has the largest volumes to be disposed of. A conservative estimate is that there are today at least 180 000 - 264 000 metric tonnes of obsolete pesticides located in old warehouses, landfills, and dumps across the region as well as a growing volume of contaminated soils from unmanaged stocks. Unfortunately, disposal projects in the region to date were unable to dispose of substantial amounts of POPs, due to both the lack of regional disposal infrastructure as well as the inability to export wastes because of restrictions for hazardous wastes transit through most countries in the region.