Global Activities on Chemicals & Waste

Main Issues

Contamination by chemicals is a global issue. While toxic chemicals are found practically in all ecosystems on earth, thus affecting biodiversity, agricultural production or water resources, scientists estimate that everyone today carries within her or his body a large number of chemical contaminants, for which the health impact is not precisely known.

At the end of their life, chemicals are recycled or disposed as part of waste. The inappropriate management of such waste (e.g. through open burning) poses negative impacts on human health and the environment.

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)

Of all the pollutants released into the environment by human activity, Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are among the most dangerous. POPs are pesticides, industrial chemicals, or unwanted by-products of industrial processes that have been used for decades but have more recently been found to share a number of disturbing characteristics, including:

• Persistence — they resist degradation in air, water, and sediments;
• Bio-accumulation — they accumulate in living tissues at concentrations higher than those in the surrounding environment;
• Long-range transport — they can travel great distances from the source of release through air, water, and migratory animals, often contaminating areas thousands of kilometers away from any known source.

POPs are highly toxic and long-lasting, and cause an array of adverse effects, including disease and birth defects in humans and animals. Some of the severe health impacts from POPs include cancer, damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems, reproductive disorders, and disruption of the immune system. These synthetic chemicals move everywhere, even through the placental barrier and into the womb, exposing the unborn during the most vulnerable stages of development.

POPs do not respect international borders, and are often intergenerational, affecting both adults and their children. POPs can affect people and wildlife even at very low doses. The serious environmental and human health hazards created by these chemicals particularly affect developing countries, where systems and technology for monitoring, tracking, and disposing of them can be weak or nonexistent. Across Africa, for example, at least 50,000 tons of obsolete pesticides are contaminating soil, water, air, and food sources.

What we do

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) plays a catalytic role in leveraging budgetary resources from national governments and incentivizing the private sector to contribute more to the achievement of elimination and reduction of harmful chemicals and waste. The GEF is committed to address the drivers of chemical pollution by

• Preventing the exposure of humans and the environment to harmful chemicals and waste of global importance.
• Helping countries move towards innovative, rapid, transformational change, combining environmentally safe technologies and systems with financial and organizational mechanisms, policies, and practices.
• Developing the enabling conditions, tools and environment for the sound management of harmful chemicals and wastes.
• Reducing the prevalence of harmful chemicals and waste and support the implementation of clean alternative technologies/substances

Fullfilling the Stockholm Convention Objectives

Recognizing the dangers of POPs, many countries began limiting or banning their production, use, and release. These efforts culminated in the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. More than 160 countries Parties to the Convention agree to eliminate or reduce the release of POPs into the environment.

The Stockholm Convention currently focuses on 21 POPs of immediate concern: pesticides, industrial chemicals, and unintentional byproducts – resulting from combustion and industrial processes and among the most potent cancer-causing chemicals known.

BANNED CHEMICALS