Non-government organizations working on chemical safety,
public health and environmental justice issues welcomed a United
Nations-assisted project that will help rid the Philippines of its
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) stockpiles.
PCBs are very toxic chemical compounds. They are considered
probable human carcinogen or cancer causing substance by institutions such as
the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the United States
Environmental Protection Agency.
Due to the danger they pose to people and the environment
PCBs were placed in the initial list of "dirty dozen" toxic chemicals that the
international community had agreed to restrict and ultimately eliminate under
the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). The
treaty, which the Philippine Senate ratified in 2004, imposed a ban on the
production of PCBs and gave countries until 2025 to eliminate the use of PCBs in
certain equipment.
The Ban Toxics!, EcoWaste Coalition, Global Alliance for
Incinerator Alternatives, Greenpeace Southeast Asia, and Health Care Without
Harm expressed their support for the project that will demonstrate the viability
of destroying PCBs-containing materials and wastes using a non-combustion
technology, to be carried out with the critical participation of public interest
NGOs.
"This project, we hope, will spur public concern and
participation in completing the country's inventory of PCBs and in ensuring
their safe containment and destruction or irreversible transformation in an
environmentally-sound manner, so that these exceedingly toxic compounds no
longer pose threats to the health of Filipinos and our environment," the groups
said in a statement.
"The project brings together the confluence of interests of
government, industry and civil society. More importantly, the project will help
the Philippines achieve its 2014 deadline for the phase out of PCBs use or
storage as directed by the 2004 DENR Chemical Control Order for PCBs, and drive
the country to becoming self-reliant in managing its hazardous wastes using
ecological non-incineration solutions," added the groups.
The project is funded through the Global Environmental
Facility (GEF), with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
as the implementing agency, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources
- Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) as the national executing agency,
and the Philippine National Oil Company - Philippine Alternative Fuel
Corporation (PNOC-PAFC) as the operating entity.
The other key project partners are the Manila Electric
Company (MERALCO), National Power Corporation (NAPOCOR), the National
Transmission Corporation (TransCo) and the public interest NGOs.
PCBs are thin, light-colored liquids to yellow or black waxy
solids used as heat exchange fluids in electric transformers or capacitors, and
as plasticizers in paints, plastics, and rubber products and as additives in
dyes, pigments, sealants and carbonless copy paper.
These extremely toxic chemicals have been demonstrated to
cause cancer in animals, as well as a range of other destructive health effects
on the endocrine, immune, nervous, and reproductive systems.
Data gathered from the National Implementation Plan (NIP) for
the Stockholm Convention that was launched in 2006 show that the Philippines was
never a manufacturer of PCBs and that majority of the inventoried
PCBs-containing equipment are transformers (97.16 percent), capacitors (2.57
percent) and oil circuit breakers (.27 percent).
According to the NIP, the main source of entry of PCBs into the country was
through importation, mostly as part of electrical transformers. However, the
number of imported PCB transformers could not be reliably determined due to
inadequate records.
