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From P A N U P S, Pesticide Action Network Updates Service
Companies Slow to Clean Up Obsolete Pesticide Stocks
November 2, 2001
Greenpeace has called upon pesticide manufacturers to remove and ensure
the safe disposal of over 70 tons of obsolete pesticides that the
companies have exported to and abandoned in Nepal over the past 20
years.
Companies such as Bayer, Sumitomo, Sandoz, Shell, Rhone Poulenc, DuPont,
Union Carbide and Monsanto abandoned the pesticides in Nepal after the
chemicals reached their expiry date or were banned. The companies
originally exported most of the pesticides to Nepal as donations or as
part of international "aid" packages.
Earlier this month, a dozen activists from India, Germany and the U.K.
spent two weeks alongside Nepalese agricultural technicians near
Kathmandu, Nepal trying to make an old warehouse safe where pesticides
had been stored in their original—now rusting and rotting—containers.
Greenpeace says that this attempt to contain the stockpile of obsolete
pesticides has been successful. The clean-up crew aimed to contain all
the poisons in high density barrels and hundreds of small containers to
prepare them for transport back to the original countries of production.
The most dangerous pesticides at the Kathmandu site according to
Greenpeace are chlorinated organomercury compounds produced by the
German company Bayer and banned in the European Union since 1988.
Greenpeace added that Bayer has refused repeated requests from the
Nepalese government to help clean up the stocks.
According to a report released earlier this year, more than 500,000
tonnes of old and unused pesticides are seriously threatening the health
of millions of people and the environment in developing countries and
countries in transition. The report, co-authored by the UN Food and
Agriculture Organization (FAO), the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development and the United Nations Environment Program,
stated that the figures are dramatically higher than previous estimates
of around 100,000 tonnes.
The report estimates that stocks of obsolete pesticides (those that have
been banned or expired) include over 100,000 tonnes in Africa and the
Near East, over 200,000 tonnes in Asia and more than 200,000 tonnes in
Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The FAO is still preparing
inventories for Latin America.
"There is hardly any developing country that is not affected by the
hazards of obsolete pesticides," FAO expert Alemayehu Wodageneh said.
Poisons leaking from the stocks threaten human health, contaminate
natural resources like soil and water and make fields unfit for crop
production. The often abandoned pesticide stocks are situated in rural
areas near farm fields and wells and in urban centers near houses, food
stores and markets. With rarely any security measures, people prepare
food and fetch water, children play and animals graze around toxic waste
sites in villages.
Among the highly toxic and persistent pesticides in the waste sites
around the world are aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin,
heptachlor, malathion, and parathion.
Pesticide formulations are often unstable under tropical conditions and
degrade rapidly. Many pesticides have a shelf-live of only two years,
and improper storage under tropical heat and humidity can further reduce
this short life span. As pesticides deteriorate, they form by-products
that can be more toxic than the original substance.
Obsolete pesticides are considered hazardous waste, the FAO said.
Removal and destruction is expensive -- the cost of disposal is
estimated at around US$3 per kilogram or litre. Despite industry
commitments to pay US$1 per kilogram/litre for the incineration of
obsolete pesticides, the FAO reports that companies have so far
contributed little funding to the disposal efforts. Since aid agencies
of donor countries cannot cover all the disposal costs, Wodageneh said
that support from industry is crucial.
The safest way to dispose of obsolete pesticides is high temperature
incineration, the FAO said. Since safe incinerators are rare in
developing countries, pesticides are repackaged and shipped to a country
with a hazardous waste destruction facility. However, incinerating the
contents of the metal drums and other containers of obsolete pesticides
does not address the more difficult problem of cleaning up contaminated
soil.
The FAO called upon its members to apply environmentally-friendly
integrated pest management (IPM) methods and to drastically reduce the
use of pesticides.
Sources: FAO Press Release, May 9, 2001; United Nations Environment
Programme Press Release, May 25, 1999; Environmental News Network,
"Pesticides Sent as Aid to Nepal Now Toxic Waste," October 18, 2001.
PANUPS is a weekly email news service providing resource guides and
reporting on pesticide issues that don't always get coverage by the
mainstream media. It's produced by Pesticide Action Network North
America, a non-profit and non-governmental organization working to
advance sustainable alternatives to pesticides worldwide.
To subscribe, send a blank message to: panups-subscribe@igc.topica.com
Pesticide Action Network North America (PANNA)
49 Powell St., Suite 500, San Francisco, CA 94102 USA
Phone: (415) 981-1771
Fax: (415) 981-1991
Email: panna@panna.org
Web: http://www.panna.org
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