International conventions for persistent,
toxic, mobile and bioaccumulative
chemicals
International conventions for PTMB
chemicals
• Objectives
• Basic concepts of PTMB chemicals
• Key conventions dealing with PTMB chemicals
• Global monitoring of PTMB chemicals
Basic concepts of PTMB chemicals
• You will remember these from a previous lecture(s)
– What is persistent?
Lasting for years or even decades before degrading into less dangerous
forms. High resistance to degradation (abiotic and biotic)
– Which toxic compounds?
Everything is, right? Even water? High toxicity at very low concentrations
– How mobile?
Moves to remote areas far from sources
– What is bioaccumualtive?
Toxic substance taken up at a higher rate than being removed from an
organism. Lipophilic compounds (they like lipids).
Biomagnification through the food web
results in higher trophic organisms
accumulating more PBTs through
consumption of lower trophic organisms
Basic concepts of PTMB chemicals
• Transboundary movement
Tracking the Distribution of
Persistent Organic Pollutants
Wania & Mackay, VOL. 30, NO. 9,
1996 Environmental Science &
Technology (News)
Key conventions dealing with PTMB
chemicals
Global treaties to protect human health and the environment from
chemicals
• Stockholm Convention (SC) on Persistent Organic Pollutants
(POPs)
– Reduce exposure by eliminating or reduce use and emissions
– Requires parties to:
• Restrict, prohibit and/or eliminate the
production and use, import and export
intentionally or unintentionally produced
POPs
• Promotes the use of best available
techniques and best environmental
practices for preventing releases of POPs
into the environment.
• Ensure POPs stockpiles and wastes
managed safely and in an environmentally
sound manner
• To target additional POPs /list new ones
Parties to Stockholm Convention
SC on POPs - parties
Key conventions dealing with PTMB
chemicals
• Stockholm Convention (SC)
on Persistent Organic
Pollutants (POPs)
– A POP by definition share
these properties:
 highly toxic
 persistent
 travel long distances
 accumulate in fatty tissue
Key conventions dealing with PTMB
chemicals
• Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary
Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal
– Under which framework was set up for controlling movement of
hazardous wastes across international borders
– Criteria developed for “environmentally sound management” of
hazardous wastes
Key conventions dealing with PTMB
chemicals
• Basel Convention on the Control of
Transboundary Movements of
Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal
− The provisions of the Convention center
around the following principal aims:
 the reduction of hazardous waste generation and the
promotion of environmentally sound management of
hazardous wastes, wherever the place of disposal;
 the restriction of transboundary movements of
hazardous wastes except where it is perceived to be
in accordance with the principles of environmentally
sound management; and
 a regulatory system applying to cases where
transboundary movements are permissible.”
[http://www.pic.int/]
Key conventions dealing with PTMB
chemicals
• Rotterdam Convention on the Prior
Informed Consent Procedure for Certain
Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in
International Trade
– “Objectives of the convention are:
• to promote shared responsibility and cooperative efforts
among Parties in the international trade of certain
hazardous chemicals in order to protect human health
and the environment from potential harm;
• to contribute to the environmentally sound use of those
hazardous chemicals, by facilitating information
exchange about their characteristics, by providing for a
national decision-making process on their import and
export and by disseminating these decisions to Parties.”
[http://www.pic.int/]
Key conventions dealing with PTMB
chemicals
• Rotterdam Convention
– “The Prior Informed Consent (PIC)
procedure – The PIC procedure is a
mechanism for formally obtaining
and disseminating the decisions of
importing Parties as to whether they
wish to receive future shipments of
those chemicals” listed in the
Convention or “for ensuring
compliance with these decisions by
exporting Parties.”
– “Information Exchange - The
Convention facilitates information
exchange.” Notification required
“when taking a domestic regulatory
action to ban or severely restrict a
chemical.”
Global monitoring of PTMB chemicals
• Example - The Global Monitoring Plan on Persistent
Organic Pollutants (GMP)
– Article 16 of SC on POPs: requires effectiveness of measures
adopted by the Convention regularly evaluated
GMP: aims at collecting comparable, harmonized and reliable information on POP
levels in core environmental matrices (air, breast milk/blood and water).
Flow chart of activities so far
Global monitoring of PTMB chemicals
• Available Global Monitoring Plan (GMP) data
What happens to POPs levels over time? Are measures to eliminate or reduce
emissions working?
- Time series analysis
- Active air samples
- γ-HCH
- Median and 5-95th percentile
- Chicago
Global monitoring of PTMB chemicals
• Available Global Monitoring Plan (GMP) data
Do we know anything about spatial trends? Where are the highest POPs
contaminations? Can we figure out why? Are the POPs mobile?
The end…..any questions?