18 August
2006 - The Minister for the Environment and Heritage,
Senator Ian Campbell, has approved Australia’s
plan to help reduce damaging and long-lasting
pollutants in the environment.
Senator Campbell said the national
implementation plan for the Stockholm Convention
on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) was an
important step in Australia’s efforts to reduce
some of the world’s most hazardous and environmentally
enduring substances.
“POPs are chemicals that stay
in the environment for a long time, circulate
around the planet and accumulate in the fatty
tissue of living organisms. They are toxic to
humans and wildlife and have been found in remote
parts of the Arctic many thousand of kilometres
from their origin,” Senator Campbell said.
“The 12 POPs identified by the
convention are aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin,
endrin, heptachlor, mirex, toxaphene, polychlorinated
biphenyls (PCB), dioxins, furans and hexachlorobenzene
(HCB).”
The convention came into force
on 17 May 2004, with Australia becoming a party
on 18 August 2004.
Senator Campbell said the plan had been developed
in consultation with state and territory governments
and representatives of peak industry, environment
and health groups.
“This plan reflects past and
current actions and identifies other actions that
Australia will undertake in the future to meet
our international obligations under the convention.
We will now submit our plan to the United Nations
Environment Programme,” he said.
The major actions for Australia
will be to complete destruction of the existing
stockpile of POPs waste. These include HCB waste
stored at the Orica site in Sydney and organochlorine
pesticides collected under the ChemCollect programme.
Work will also continue on removing PCB from electrical
equipment.
“We will also phase-out the
use of the pesticide mirex by early 2007, so that
Australia’s exemption to use the pesticide under
the convention can be withdrawn,” Senator Campbell
said.
The plan also underpins action to be taken on
dioxins and furans.
Copies of the plan are available
at www.deh.gov.au/settlements/chemicals/international/pop.html
More information about the Stockholm Convention
is available at http://www.pops.int
Rob Broadfield
