From 29 April to 10 May 2019 the Parties of the Stockholm, Rotterdam and Basel Conventions met in Geneva/Switzerland. ETI was represented by Urs K. Wagner, Member of the Advisory Committee of the PCB Elimination Network (PEN).

With an estimated 100 million tonnes of plastic in our seas, the problem of plastic waste was one of the big topics discussed by the participants of the COPs. Governments amended the Basel Convention (on the transboundary movement of wastes) to include plastic waste in a legally-binding framework which will make global trade in plastic waste more transparent.

With regard to the Stockholm Convention, it was agreed to list the following two new chemicals in Annex A: Dicofol (a pesticide used on a variety of field crops, fruits, vegetables, ornamentals and tea and coffee), as well as Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) its salts and PFOA-related compounds (PFOA is a widely-used industrial chemical used in the production of non-stick cookware and food processing equipment, as well as a surfactant in textiles, carpets, paper, paints and fire-fighting foams). As of today a total of 30 persistent organic pollutants (POPs) of global concern are listed under the Stockholm Convention.

The two newly-listed chemicals in the Rotterdam Convention are phorate (a pesticide) and hexabromocyclododecane (flame retardant). However, a decision on the worldwide ban of chrysotile asbestos production and its use could again not be reached due to opposition from Russia, India and other countries. The chrysotile problem will be forwarded to COP10 for further discussion.

During the opening session of the Triple COPs, Rolph Payet, Executive Secretary (UNE) of the three Conventions, mentioned the 2028 deadline for the elimination of PCBs. At present, the global community seems to be far from achieving this goal. This fact was also emphasised during the discussion of the PCB Progress Report, which will probably have to be reviewed due to insufficient and contradictory feedback from the Parties. It is obvious that the very complex topic of PCBs has been highly underestimated by many countries. It seems that they are reinventing the wheel instead of focussing on harmonised approaches. Urs K. Wagner made the following statement during one of the side events: “We should realize that we are not only dealing with 30 banned substances today, but in fact some hundreds or thousands of products. In the past we focused on single POPs and obviously underestimated the complexity of many of them, for example the complexity of PCBs. Therefore, we should bundle financial and labour resources and widen our perspective: In future it should be focused on joint activities and projects when assessing, handling and eliminating certain pollutants. Simply because many substances such as flame retardants, PCBs in open applications, SCCPs, PCNs and many more can be found in the same buildings or premises. We even could - or rather should - include asbestos! So let us harmonize the activities and directly involve the affected stakeholders, rather than addressing governmental, utility and academic participants only.”

In preparation of the COPs, ETI could develop a guidance on behalf of the Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention on the Identification and Management of PCBs in Open Applications (Consolidated Guidance on PCBs in Open Applications). The Guidance was presented at the occasion of a side event on 2 May 2019 and can be downloaded from the POPs Convention website. On the same day, Sweden informed about their efforts in managing PCBs: All PCB containing joints had to be replaced by 2016. Now Sweden is tackling the problem of PCBs in paints and anti-corrosion coatings.

The next Triple COP 10 will take place in Nairobi/Kenya in May 2021.