New chemical blacklist not enough, critics
A dirty dozen of industrial chemicals blamed for causing deaths and birth defects are outlawed from today by a U.N. pact.
But many experts want other poisons to be added to the blacklist.
The 2001 Stockholm convention on 12 persistent organic pollutants (POPs) comes into force on May 17 after ratifcation by 50 states, ending use of a range of pesticides, dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).
"The convention will save lives and protect the natural environment ... by banning the production and use of some of the most toxic chemicals known to humankind," said Klaus Toepfer, head of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).
Even, so it will takes years for POPs, which are used in everyday items like plastics or paints as well as pesticides, to break down. And everyone on the planet has traces of POPs in their bodies, UNEP says.
But many experts say the dirty dozen list is too short.
"Some of the old classical pesticides are in decline in some areas," said Lars-Otto Reiersen, head of the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme.
"What alarms us most is that levels of new products like brominated flame retardants are increasing."
Flame retardants are used for example in sofas, clothing or television sets. Some are restricting their use because of worries about their environmental impact.
"Brominated flame retardants are a possibility [for addition to the list] as are many other chemicals," said Jim Willis, head of UNEP's chemicals division.
Canadian environmentalists also want the pesticide lindane outlawed.
POPs can cause cancer and damage the nervous, reproductive and immune systems of people and animals, UNEP says.
High levels of POPs have been found in Inuit breast milk and POPs have been blamed for deforming the sexual organs of female polar bears and making them look like hermaphrodites.
"We are being poisoned from afar," Sheila Watt-Cloutier, the head of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference that represents 155,000 Inuit, said last week.
POPs like the pesticides DDT, aldrin or dieldrin have been long banned in many nations. Even so, anyone scraping off old paint from a window frame, for instance, may release PCBs.
POPs build up in fatty tissues. The Inuit hope the ban will make traditional fatty foods, like seal or fish, less risky.
The Stockholm convention will unlock spending of about US$500 million, partly to help destroy stockpiles and seek alternatives to POPs.
About 25 nations, including South Africa and Ethiopia, will be allowed to keep using DDT to spray malarial mosquitoes.
The WWF environmental group expressed worries that global warming could exacerbate the POPs problem; higher temperatures might wash out chemicals that have been locked in glaciers, or flooding might release buried POPs.
The U.N.'s ban covers the following chemicals: aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieltrin, dioxins, endrin, furans, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, mirex, PCBs and toxaphene.