Persistent Organic pollutants in Asia

Press release - November 20, 1998

NEW DELHI, India — Life-threatening poisons such as DDT, aldrin, chlordane, dieldrin and heptachlor -all of which are either severely restricted or banned in most countries- continue to be manufactured, stored, used and traded freely in South Asia, accordin g to an investigative report released by the international environmental group Greenpeace.

NEW DELHI: Life-threatening poisons such as DDT, aldrin, chlordane, dieldrin and heptachlor -all of which are either severely restricted or banned in most countries- continue to be manufactured, stored, used and traded freely in South Asia, accordin g to an investigative report released by the international environmental group Greenpeace.

The report titled "Toxic Legacies; Poisoned Futures: Persistent Organic Pollutants in Asia" reveals a story of potentially widespread contamination caused by irresp onsible corporate behavior, shortsighted lending agencies and misguided government policies.

"Asia faces a frightening scenario of historic, current and potential poisoning by the most dangerous variety of persistent poisons. This situation is a result of existing stockpiles of obsolete pesticides, the continuing production of organochlorine and other chemical pesticides and the unmitigated expansion of dirty chlorine-based industries in the region," said Nityanand Jayaraman, Greenpeace campaigner.

Focusing on a class of poisonous chemicals called Persistent Organic Pollutants or POPs, which are now targeted for elimination by ongoing international negotiations under the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), Greenpeace investigations conduct ed between April and August 1998 in seven Asian countries, including Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, revealed that - Stocks of 5000 metric tons or more of obsolete pesticides, including POP chemicals are stored in extremely hazardous conditions in more than a thousand sites in Pakistan and Nepal. A sizeable portion of these pesticides are reported to have arrived a s part of aid packages from Western countries, and almost all the pesticides were exported by developed nations and India to Pakistan and Nepal. Chemical corporations whose products were identified in stockpiles in Pakistan and Nepal by Greenpeace investigators include: Bayer and Hoechst (Germany); DuPont, Dow Chemicals, Diamond Shamrock and Velsicol (USA); Shell (Netherlands); Sumitomo Che mical and Takeda Chemical (Japan); Rhone Poulenc (France); Sandoz (Switzerland); ICI (UK); Bharat Pulverising Mills (India).

India is among the three remaining known manufacturers of DDT (10,000 mt capacity) in the world, the other two being Mexico and China; India exports nearly 800,000 kilograms of POP pesticides including aldrin, DDT, BHC, and chlordane to a long list of countries, including countries where their usage is banned. Exports of pesticides that could be branded POPs in the near future su ch as endosulfan, sodium pentachlorophenate, 2,4-D, and lindane, total more than two million tonnes. Some of the pesticides such as aldrin are not permitted to be even manufactured in India.

In Pakistan, India, Nepal and Bangladesh, locally banned or severely restricted pesticides are freely available. Greenpeace found DDT, BHC, Dieldrin and Heptachlor openly sold in vegetable markets in Karachi. Hardware stores in New Delhi stock the deadly pesticide aldrin whose registration was withdrawn more than two years ago.

POPs are a class of synthetic toxic chemicals that cause severe and long-term effects on wildlife, ecosystems and human health. POPs have been implicated in the rising incidence of certain cancers (e.g. breast, prostate, endometriosis, etc.), reproductive deficits such as infertility and sex linked disorders, declining sperm counts, fetal malformations, neurobehavioral impairment, and immune system dysfunction. Because of major threats to human health, the UNEP process has shortlisted an initial twelve su bstances for elimination which include organochlorine pesticides, (DDT, chlordane, mirex, hexachlorobenzene, endrin, aldrin, toxaphene, heptachlor) industrial chemicals like the cancer-causing PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), and the super-toxic dioxins and furans.

In line with the emerging requirements of the UNEP POPs process, Greenpeace also urges governments in the region to take action now by inventorying all sources of POPs in their countries and preventing the expansion of POPs producing technologies such as incinerators, PVC manufacturing, pesticide production facilities, and pulp and paper mills using chlorine bleaching processes.

"It is unfortunate that while governments in the region are still grappling for ways to dispose of their stockpiles of obsolete imported pesticides, the continuing production and trade of these chemicals goes on unabated. This could only lead to an end less cycle of poisoning whose unwitting and eventual victims are communities and future generations," said Jack Weinberg, international toxics campaigner with Greenpeace. "Governments should aim for an eventual phase-out of such polluting practices and pu sh for international cooperation in developing viable and sustainable non-chemical alternatives."

"While governments in the region are responsible for taking action against POPs pollution, the liabilities associated with such action must always fall on the polluter -- the corporations and international lending agencies -- and not on the citizens w ho have long-endured the consequences of toxics pollution," added Jayaraman.

For more information:Manu Gopalan, Toxics Campaigner - 9811608036

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