Govt to ban importation, sale and use of POPs - Ayittey

Accra, April 27, GNA - Government would soon ban the importation, sale, transfer and use of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). POPs are chemical substances that persist in the environment, bio-accumulate through the food web, and pose a risk of causing adverse effects to human health and the environment.

They are derived from pesticides, industrial discharges and elements in electrical transformers.

Ms Sherry Ayittey, Minister of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST) announced this at the first Regional Ministerial Committee Meeting of Ghana and Nigeria Regional Project on POPs in Accra on Tuesday. The meeting, being attended by 15 delegates and representative of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), Global Environment Facility, Ministers of Environment from Ghana and Nigeria, sought to develop appropriate strategies for identifying sites contaminated by chemicals in the two countries.

Ms Ayittey said provision of the legislation would define requirements for handling, storage, labelling, treatment, spill prevention and disposal. It would in addition, help develop separate technical guidelines to facilitate its effective implementation.

She said POPs had been acknowledged to be among the most dangerous synthetic chemicals to the environment and caused adverse effects including death, disease and defects among human and animal. "They accumulate in body fat and passed from mother to foetus in the womb and through breast milk. Such chemicals are easily transported from their point of release throughout the biosphere especially into the polar regions by wind and water currents," she added. Ms Ayittey said "POPs can stay in the environment for a very long time without degrading; such chemicals and toxic substances pollute water bodies and agricultural lands and find ways into food substances". "For a long time the natural environment is considered and treated as a self-renewable resource, but we realize today that humanity is sowing the seed of its own destruction by the way we treat the environment," she said. Ms Ayittey said although the negative effects of these chemicals affected every individual, farmers who used pesticides and industrial workers were the most vulnerable.

To devise a means of addressing this challenge, she said the International Community negotiated and agreed on a convention in December 2000 in Stockholm, Sweden which Ghana was a signatory. Ms Ayittey said the convention among other things set out control measures covering the life cycle of POPs from production to disposal. The convention signed by delegates from 122 countries also called on all parties to prohibit and take legal action and administrative measures to eliminate the production and use of POPs. 27 April 10