The common feature which binds stocks of obsolete pesticides regardless of their condition or location, is the serious threat that they pose to health and the environment while they remain inadequately managed. While the most acute hazards are presented close to the stockpiles, many of the products can be transported through the global environment to contaminate ecological compartments and organisms far away.
The scale and nature of the obsolete pesticides problem demands that urgent action be taken to remove the stockpiles and prevent their recurrence. Such action is technically complex and costly and requires the support of the international community.
The Inter-Organisation Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals (IOMC) is a grouping of intergovernmental organisations that are concerned with chemicals in some way. A subgroup of the IOMC – consisting of FAO, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), World Health Organisation (WHO) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) – has been created to coordinate activities on obsolete pesticides. One of the first tasks of this subgroup was to commission Mark Davis of PAN
UK to write a Baseline Study to provide an overview of the current situation, what was being done and identify the areas where action is needed.
The original study was used as a background paper for the workshop organised by the IOMC subgroup and hosted by the US Environmental Protection Agency in Alexandria, Virginia last September. It has now been edited and published as number nine in the FAO Pesticide Disposal Series.
The study explains in simple terms the current situation and estimates a global stockpile of some 500,000 tonnes of obsolete pesticides. The causes of obsolescence and accumulation are discussed and the impacts of the stockpiles on health, the environment and the economy are expounded. It goes on to discuss why it is so difficult to deal with the stockpiles and to prevent the creation of new obsolete pesticides.
The following two chapters provide a comprehensive review of activities to deal with stockpiles and to prevent the accumulation of new obsolete pesticide stocks. The activities of inter-governmental organisations, bilateral and multilateral donors, and financial institutions, NGOs and industry are all described, possibly leading to an assumption that such a wide range of activity should be delivering significant results.
Sadly the reality is that despite the best efforts of so many organisations, insufficient progress is being made in removing existing stockpiles and preventing new ones. The study refrains from making its own recommendations, but the need for concerted action is made clear.
Baseline study on the problem of obsolete pesticide stocks, FAO Disposal Series No. 9, FAO, Rome, 2001.
[This article first appeared in
Pesticides News No. 52, June 2001, page 5]