Projects
1.ELIMINATION OF ACUTE RISKS OF OBSOLETE PESTICIDES IN MOLDOVA, ARMENIA AND GEORGIA
3.DESTRUCTION OF PESTICIDES AND CHEMICAL WASTE IN BISHTI I PALLĖS, PORTO ROMANO , ALBANIA
4.INTERNATIONAL HCH AND PESTICIDES FORUM
5.SPECIAL STUDIES ON OBSOLETE PESTICIDES
ELIMINATION OF ACUTE RISKS OF OBSOLETE PESTICIDES IN MOLDOVA, ARMENIA AND GEORGIA
See also: http://www.milieukontakt.nl/project_more.php?id=46
Geographic scope: Moldova, Armenia, Georgia
Period: Jan 1st, 2005 - Dec 31st, 2007
Funder: TMF programme (in Dutch Thematische Mede Financiering and in English Thematic Co-financing) of
the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Dutch Foundation Doen
PSO Capacity Building in Developing Countries
Partners: Tauw bv, international environmental consultancy firm (originally:
Technical Consultants (Adviesbureau in Dutch) of the Union of district Waterboards, founded in 1928)
IHPA, (International HCH & Pesticides Association)
SNM, the Netherlands Society for Nature and Environment
Themes: obsolete pesticides, public-private partnerships, awareness raising, human health, capacity
building, (inter)national network development
Aim
The project aims at storing and eliminating the pesticides in partner countries in the Dutch development aid programme. In each of the countries the programme will be adapted to the local situation.
Introduction
The World Health Organisation estimated (WHO, 1986) that one million people are affected by insecticide poisoning every year and that 20.000 die as a result of being unaware of the risks involved in handling insecticides.
Initially arranged as a short-term, but then turned to be the long-term, storage of obsolete pesticides (OP) with deterioration of packaging, loss of labels and storage documentation, has resulted in spillages, and by re-packaging, mixing of the pesticides with possible chemical reactions of unknown results. The stockpiled chemicals may affect the environment in various ways, and cause contamination of soil and groundwater, surface water and air. Most pesticides are extremely stable substances. In many environmental studies the presence of DDT and HCH was used as a general indicator of pollution. 
DDT, Aldrin, heptachlor, HCH were detected in soil 8-12 years after their application.
Storage
It is a general recommendation to locate stocks of obsolete pesticides in areas with large distance to the groundwater level. However, it was observed frequently in several countries, especially when the chemical waste was dumped just in pits or on soil surface, that the quantities were dumped without a liner and in areas with very shallow groundwater. But even if the stores originally were protected, the liners, floors and pavements in many cases were not maintained properly and thus lost their protective qualities. Inappropriate storage, handling and transportation of obsolete pesticides may result in spreading of pesticide dust over considerable areas. Obsolete pesticides pose there by not only a local but also a global environmental risk.
Common concern, common attack
To be effective and in order to reach sustainable solutions for the elimination of acute risks, it is essential that all stakeholders are involved in the process. Obsolete pesticides should be considered as a common threat and a common responsibility. Another important sustainability factor is raising awareness of the risks and the solutions of the problem of obsolete pesticides. Citizens may have them at home and do not know what to do with them. Others may be tempted to take from the storage facilities hazardous chemicals to use them in their own garden. Knowledge about the risks of pesticides will help to prevent these situations.
A process to involve stakeholders and citizens is in other words essential for the solution of this problem. This process offers also an excellent opportunity to develop a (network of) NGOs concerned with environmental issues on regional level, and develop the relations with the government and other parties.
In general the project aims at the following results :
. Local structure of stakeholders is established and running
. Risks are identified and inventarised
. Local Action Plans are developed
. Risks of dissemination of obsolete pesticides are eliminated in a specific country or region through proper storage
. Personnel is trained in stock taking, risk assessment and packaging of obsolete pesticides
. Internet forum and Network on Obsolete pesticides are established and running
. Project results are brought to the attention of international Fora, national governments and funders.
DISPOSAL OF PESTICIDES (RE-PACKING, COLLECTION AND ELIMINATION OF PESTICIDE RESIDUES ON THE ROMANIAN TERRITORY ) EUROPEAID/115815/D/SV/RO - OBSOLETE PESTICIDES
See also http://www.r-o-p.dk/indexen.html
The Romanian Government has called for international assistance to solve the problem of obsolete pesticides , which comprise a serious problem to food production and safety, to the environment and to public health.
The European Union, through PHARE Programme , supports the Government of Romania to establish a coherent and efficient agricultural policy, in order to prepare the conditions for joint negotiations in the field of agricultural economy. The EU PHARE Programme supports financially the clean-up of 1.409 tones of obsolete pesticides. Romania has an own contribution of 25% of the total support.
In Romania a joint action of the local Phyto-Sanitary Authorities and the local Environmental protection authorities, respectively, has developed a nationwide inventory of obsolete pesticides . A number of 133 storage facilities are listed comprising a series of different pesticides and chemicals to be collected and disposed of. As no treatment is possible in Romania , disposal is foreseen to take place outside the country in one of the EU member states. The tender of contract was won by a German contractor, SAVA . The tender for the supervision was won by the consortium Ramboll . IHPA has been included as subcontractor in the Ramboll Consortium consisting of Ramboll Denmark , Tauw, The Netherlands and UBA, Austria
IHPA was involved as Team leader for the Supervision and for the Technical Assistance
ACTIVITIES
The project comprises two distinct components; supervision of obsolete pesticides clean-up action, and technical assistance to the Ministry in policy and strategy development in order to prevent new stocks to develop, respectively.
Works Contract
Cleanup of a total of 130 designated storage facilities.
Repackaging - the original packaging of the pesticides at the storage sites has deteriorated in time so the total quantity of pesticides will require a repackaging before shipment. Collection and repackaging it is performed in a way to prevent any avoidable release of pesticides wastes (for example a formation of dust or a spill of liquid pesticides).
Supervision Contract
a) The supervision is divided into 5 groups of activities:
1. Planning of Supervision
2. Review and confirmation of Contractors works planning
3. Re-assessment of inventory data
4. Site clean-up (133 sites) and repackaging
5. Temporary Storage
6. Export and treatment
In 2004-2005, Phare supported an Obsolete Pesticides Clean-up Programme, and by the end of November 2005 in total 1.715 tonnes of pesticides waste have been repackaged and transported for final disposal in Germany .
For this project extension, the remaining amount found at the storage facilities in the Oradea and Suceava areas have been repacked, temporary stored in Romania , and send them to Germany to treat them (neutralisation, incineration, and disposal). Hence part of further amounts found by the Phytosanitary Directions during Phase I have been included in the Phase II Clean up programme.
The Contractor's activity has started after the winter pause, the Phase II programme , in 2006. This programme dealt with a total of 747 tons at 127 sites. Phase II continued in Oradea the clean up the remaining 3 sites (55 tons) and has then moved on to the Suceava region comprising 23 sites (460 tons). Furthermore a number of 101 new sites, selected by the Ministry of Agriculture all over the Romanian territory, have been cleaned up as part of the Phase II programme.
b) The second component, is the technical assistance
1. for prevention of further stock accumulation of obsolete pesticides
2. auditing the Romanian institutions involved in this issue
3. proposing an action plan or corrective measures so that Romania would not face a similar problem in the future;
The main output of the technical assistance for the prevention of further stock accumulation of obsolete pesticides was the elaboration of a Strategy and implementation plan, which comprised:
• Development of a sound plan of measures to be taken by the Romanian authorities with a view to preventing further build-up of pesticides waste stocks.
• Development of revised policies, regulations and procedures for the management of pesticide waste resulting from agriculture practices.
The draft report has been submitted to all Romanian stakeholders. Thereafter a 2 days workshop has been organized at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forest and Rural Development with participation of all stakeholders. All issues have been discussed and final remarks have been submitted for the final version and been incorporated. The definitive report has been submitted to the Ministry.
DESTRUCTION OF PESTICIDES AND CHEMICAL WASTE IN BISHTI I PALLĖS, PORTO ROMANO , ALBANIA
Geographic scope: Albania , Porto Romano environmental hot spot, north of port city of Durrės ,
Period: April 2006 - June, 2006
Funder: Royal Netherlands Embassy in Albania
Execution of works: SAVA, Brunsbüttel , Germany
Supervision: Ramboll Denmark with IHPA, as subcontractor with special input for the HCH problems
As a part of the remediation efforts of the Porto Romano environmental hot spot, 10 kilometres north of the Albanian port city of Durrės , 313,716 kilograms of heavy pesticides and toxic chemicals have recently been repackaged. Among the pesticides were large quantities of lindane (partly in an almost 100 percent pure form) and carbon disulfide. The chemicals were stored in warehouses in Bishti i Pallės that were freely accessible to the public. The original packaging was destroyed during repeated attempts to pillage the warehouses. The repackaged pesticides will be transported to Germany for destruction.
The remediation efforts of the Porto Romano hot spot are sponsored by the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Albania as part of its environmental cooperation programme with the Government of Albania. The subproject consisting of the repackaging and destruction of chemical waste in Bishti i Pallės was internationally tendered. The tender has been won by SAVA Sonderabfallverbrennungsanlagen GmbH of Germany. SAVA executed the subproject between 28 April 2006 and 1 June 2006 .
The Porto Romano environmental hot spot is heavily contaminated due to the production of pesticides and tannery chemicals in a factory during the communist period in Albania . After the collapse of the communist system, the chemical factory in Porto Romano was abandoned. Since then, about 5,000 people have settled in and around the former chemical factory. The remediation efforts of the Porto Romano environmental hotspot aim to stop further exposure of man and nature to toxic waste.
INTERNATIONAL HCH AND PESTICIDES FORUM
Since 1992, the international HCH and Pesticides Forum is bi-annually organised. Fora have been organised in:
• 1992 Zwolle , the Netherlands
• 1993 Magdeburg , Germany
• 1994 Bilbao , Spain
• 1996 Poznan , Poland
• 1998 Bilbao , Spain
• 2001 Poznan, Poland
• 2003, Kiev, Ukraine
• 2005, Sofia, Bulgaria
The 9th International HCH and Pesticides Forum will be held from 20-22 September 2007 in Chisinau , Moldova .
The International HCH & Pesticides Association is searching co-sponsors for the 9 th Forum.
Details on this Forum can be found in the special section for the 9 th Forum on this website
SPECIAL STUDIES ON OBSOLETE PESTICIDES
1. New, emerging and/or less expensive solutions for the destruction of land contaminated with pesticides
State-of-the-Art
John Vijgen
International HCH & Pesticides Association
NATO/CCMS Pilot Study Fellowship Report
Evaluation of Demonstrated and Emerging Remedial Action Technologies for the
Treatment of Contaminated Land and Groundwater (Phase III), published in 2001
Abstract (Further details can be found in the IHPA library for downloading)
This NATO/CCMS Fellowship Report describes the current international development on pesticides seen in the framework of the POPs Convention (9 of the 12 POPs are pesticides), and a status of the "emerging technologies" related to remedial actions towards pollution problems caused by pesticides.
As technology development of pesticides remediation has been more an incidental case-to-case development in a limited number of countries, only minor progress of new technologies has been achieved during the last many years. The pesticide related contaminated land problems are till present not very well known. However "obsolete pesticides" - meaning stocks of old pesticides, and contaminated soil around these stocks, have gained political attention in the last years. The political focus is especially Africa , in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and in the Newly independent States (NIS).
Emerging of new technologies can play an important role as an important contribution to the final treatment and/or destruction of large number of pesticides/POPs stockpiles, including polluted soil in the areas of stockpiling. However, such a technology breakthrough can only be established within a framework of an international strategy, which stimulates further development, public acceptance and creates a sufficient financial framework to the support for the individual technology to pass the barrier into commercial operation. An interesting example for such a development programme can be found in ACWA (Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment), which is the US programme for testing alternative technologies for the destruction of chemical weapons.
This report is not trying to make any effort to present all existing treatment technologies for pesticides, but is focused explicitly to new alternative solutions. Incineration technologies have consequently been omitted. The technologies examined are presented in 11 Fact Sheets ( See IHPA library for free downloading) that have been developed together with a series of annexes containing detailed information on the various projects on pesticides, PCB ' s or related components. As far as it was possible, a brief evaluation has been made and the technologies are divided into 4 categories. One group comprises four direct applicable technologies with considerable experience. A second group comprises three applicable technologies on the stage of ' breaking through and/or start of commercialisation ' . A third group includes four technologies that - given the right financial circumstances - could be full scale within approx. 5 years, and finally a fourth group with one technology only is in the stage of laboratory scale testing, thus making an assessment of proximity to full-scale implementation without meaning in the present context.
The Fellowship Report documents that there are alternative technologies available for the destruction and remediation of pesticides waste and contaminated soils. In this context the report can also make a contribution to a better awareness and understanding of the problems of obsolete pesticides and to give a better insight on the state of the art of alternative and emerging technologies for the treatment of pesticides waste and contaminated soils.
2. POPs Technology Specification and Data Sheets
On request of the Secretariat of the Basel Convention IHPA has developed in 2005 till 2006 in cooperation with Dr. Ir. Ron McDowall 7 POPs Technology Specification and Data Sheets for the following technologies (all sheets are available for downloading from the IHPA library):
• Alkali-Metal-Reduction + Annex
• Autoclaving + Annex
• Base Catalyzed Decomposition (BCD) + Annex
• Cement Kiln Co-Processing (High Temperature Treatment) + Annex
• Gas-Phase Chemical Reduction (GPCR) + Annex
• Hazardous Waste Incineration + Annex
• Plasma Arc (PLASCON) + Annex
The POPs Technology Specification and Data Sheets are part of a larger Decision Making Model, which will be made available during 2006 by the Secretariat.
Objective
IHPA has made an effort to bring the global problem HCH waste under the attention of the international society and calls for international action to tackle this serious environmental forgotten problem.
Summary (Further details can be found in the IHPA library for downloading)
This report describes the various aspects of the production, management, formulation, storage and disposal of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) isomers with particular emphasis on the alpha, beta, delta and gamma (Lindane) isomers.
The production of Lindane is inefficient as for each ton of Lindane 8-12 tons of isomers are produced. These isomers have ended mostly as hazardous waste which were wildly and uncontrolled dumped at many places in the world. Although attempts have been made to use these residuals for the production of TCB, HCl and other derivates most of the attempts have been unsuccessful.
A global review has been made, in order to estimate the global amount of HCH-isomers. Two approaches have been used for the estimates.
The first approach is based on the collection of information from production sites, production capacities and produced amounts and information on waste amounts occurring. This is a kind of minimum approach as a number of sites are still unknown and if known the information is, specifically from the 50s and 60s, very difficult to access and often lacking.
By collecting data on production an approach has been made to estimate the possible amounts of residuals. For each ton of Lindane produced around 8 tons of HCH-residuals was estimated.
In Annex III, an overview has been made of all information collected of the various countries. The overview is not claimed to be complete, but a first rough indication on the situation. From these numbers first indications on total amounts of HCH-residuals has been established. These assumptions have been gathered in the following Figure. One of the major cases is shown too.
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The second approach is based on the collection of usage data and its evaluation with the help of the works from experienced scientists in the field of POPs and HCH monitoring like Breivik, Holoubek, Li and others, used in the international models which was then supplemented with other data acquired. In close cooperation, Yi-Fan Li and undersigned have made a report on the global Lindane use. In this report global and continental estimates have been made.
The second approach based on usage data as described in Annex V resulted in the following data. An overview of usage data per continent is indicated.
Lindane usage in different continents from 1950 to 2000.
Continent |
Usage (kt) |
Percentage |
Europe |
287.16 |
63.32 |
Asia |
73.20 |
16.14 |
America |
63.57 |
14.02 |
Africa |
28.54 |
6.29 |
Oceania |
1.032 |
0.23 |
Total |
435.50 |
100 |
It is estimated that global Lindane use for agricultural use amounts to around
450 000 tons for the period from 1950 to 2000. Additional use of Lindane on livestock, forestry, human health and other purposes has also to be considered and for the total global use around 600 000 tons has been estimated.
On that base a simple calculation on the total amount of possible residuals (factor 8 assumed for each ton of Lindane produced) 4.8 Mio tons of HCH-residuals could be present on the globe.
Summarizing, both approaches can give a good first estimate on the range of the total HCH-residuals problem varying from 1.7-1.9 Mio to 4.8 Mio tons.
4. Project management and special advisory works for HCH mega sites
During the last 20 years, IHPA has built up a unique know how and experiences in the strategy development and practical clean-up on large mega sites in the world with specific input on technologies application and has supported over the last decade a number of problem-owners in order to tackle these specific problems.
Information can be obtained at:
IHPA Secretariat
Phone: +45 45 41 03 21
Email: john.vijgen@get2net.dk
5. Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with pesticides aldrin, chlordane, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene (HCB), mirex or toxaphene or with HCB as an industrial chemical
The Secretariat of the Basel Convention has requested IHPA to draw up the technical guidelines. The works have been executed taking into consideration of the decisions of the Open-ended Working Group (in particular decisions OEWG I/4 and OEWG II/10) and the work and decisions of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee/POPs (i.e. decisions INC-6/5 and INC-7/6, on the development of technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of persistent organic pollutant wastes and to consult closely the Secretariat and with Parties.
Scope
The technical guidelines provide guidance for the environmentally sound management (ESM) of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with the pesticides aldrin, chlordane, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene (HCB), mirex or toxaphene or with HCB as an industrial chemical (abbreviated as "pesticide POPs") in accordance with decisions V/8, VI/23 and VII/13 of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal, decisions OEWG-I/4, OEWG-II/10, OEWG-III/8 and IV/11of the Open-ended Working Group of the Basel Convention, and taking into account Resolution 5 of the Conference of Plenipotentiaries on the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants; decisions INC-6/5 and INC-7/6 of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee for an International Legally Binding Instrument for Implementing International Action on Certain Persistent Organic Pollutants and decision SC-1/21 of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention.
The draft version is available on the website of the secretariat of the Basel Convention (status September 2006)