Obsolete pesticide stocks removed from Pakistan 

On 9 August 2001 the Minister of Agriculture for the Province of Punjab, Mr Khurshid Zaman Qureshi, announced in Lahore that a project for the removal for destruction of some 317 tonnes of obsolete pesticides has now been completed. 

The destruction of the stocks by high temperature incineration took place in the Netherlands. The Netherlands Embassy in Islamabad has been the main sponsor. This initiative, which started in 1997, formed part of the Netherlands government’s bilateral aid programme with Pakistan. Some of the original manufacturers of the pesticides contributed towards the project by paying the destruction cost of pesticides attributable to their companies.
    The pesticides date from before 1980 when the federal government stopped its policy of central pesticide purchase and free distribution to farmers. These pesticides had exceeded their shelf-lives and had become unusable, containers had corroded and they were presenting a potential risk to local communities and to the environment. The project collected the pesticides and associated materials from 13 high priority stores in the Province of Punjab, following which the stores were cleaned. The pesticides were packed into special transport containers to enable their safe transportation to the Netherlands for incineration.
    The Netherlands Embassy contracted GTZ, the German Agency for Technical Cooperation, to implement the project on its behalf, in close cooperation with the Punjab Department of Agriculture. The Dutch hazardous waste disposal company, AVR International, was awarded the contract to undertake the collection, clean-up, transport, shipping and incineration activities. 
    A separate part of the project involved the undertaking of a GTZ-supervised inventory of the remaining pesticide stores in the Province of Punjab, which identified almost 1000 tonnes of further obsolete pesticide stocks. The project also involved the training of local teams in the techniques of undertaking inventories and of the safeguarding of obsolete pesticide stocks. This transfer of know-how is expected to prove valuable for the eventual removal and destruction of the remaining obsolete pesticide stocks in the country.
    The Netherlands Embassy hopes this initiative in Pakistan will be followed quickly by further projects involving other governments, agencies and manufacturers from the original supplying countries. Minister Qureshi said that he appreciated the support of the Dutch government and confirmed that the Department of Agriculture is fully committed to assist further donor projects to achieve the safe removal and destruction of all of the remaining obsolete pesticide stocks.

For further information contact: National enquiries: Dr Rana Muhammad Shafique, Deputy Director Agriculture, Punjab, Pakistan, Tel: 042 9200739 or 042 9200712. International enquiries: Press Office, GTZ, Eschborn, Germany, Tel: 00 49 6196 791177, fax: 00 49 6196 796169.

[This article first appeared in Pesticides News No. 54, December 2001, page 17]