UN committee reviews risk profiles of five chemicals

Candidate chemicals to be considered for listing in Annexes A, B, and/or C to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants

11 October 2012, Geneva – The Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee (POPRC), a subsidiary body of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), will consider five chemicals proposed for listing in Annexes A, B, and/or C to the Convention, a step which helps eliminate POPs and protect human health and the environment. 

The Committee will consider draft risk profiles of chlorinated naphthalenes, hexachlorobutadiene, a revised draft risk profile of short-chained chlorinated paraffins, and further consider its recommendation to the COP on the listing of hexabromocyclododecane. The Committee will also consider the proposal for listing pentachlorophenol and its salts and esters.

The Committee will then discuss assessment of alternatives to endosulfan, DDT, and the use of PFOS in open applications. ‘Open applications’ is a term used in contrast to applications found in closed systems. In the case of application of a chemical in a closed system, no significant quantities of the chemical are expected to reach humans and the environment during their production and use. With open applications, the opposite is the case.

The Committee will further consider climate change and POPs, the evaluation of brominated diphenyl ethers and PFOS, its salts and PFOSF, work in collaboration with other scientific bodies and the effective participation of parties in the Committee’s work.

The eighth meeting of the POPRC will be held at the Conference Centre Varembé in Geneva, Switzerland, from 15 to 19 October 2012.

Announcements about the meeting will be tweeted @brsmeas.

Contact:

Kei Ohno, Programme Officer, Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (UNEP), Geneva, tel. +41 (22) 917 8201, e-mail: kohno@pops.int

Michael S. Jones, Public Information Officer, Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions (UNEP), Geneva, tel. +41-22-917-8668; (m) + 41-79-730-4495, e-mail: SafePlanet@unep.org