Trade & Sust. Development

Elaboration of a prelimnary inventory of priority chemical substances, with emphasis in PTS

A key activity of the Project was to develop an Inventory of hazardous Chemical Substances. The Inventory is designed to be a tool that assists the countries of the American Hemisphere to get an integral management of hazardous chemical substances, in all their life cycle; particularly the Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP), identified in the Stockholm Convention, and the Heavy Metals, in order to protect citizens and the environment of the harmful effects of these chemicals and at the same time maintain the access to their benefits.

The on-line inventory presently being developed by the DSD, is focused in the PTS, that include POPs and Heavy Metals such as mercury, lead and cadmium.

One of the most important criteria adopted for the design of the preliminary inventory is its future utilization as a tool that assists decision makers, researchers and the public of the Member Countries to take concrete action towards the development and maintenance of an integral national program for SMOC. In particular, it is planned that the Inventory be part of an “intelligent” database that should be a tool to assess the sound management of the use and trade of PTS, in order to fulfill the requirements of the Stockholm, Basel and Rotterdam Conventions.

Other objectives of the Inventory are: i) help to identify lacks and deficiencies in the current practices of management and to define possible solutions; ii) serve as a convenient tool for information exchange about the use and risks of hazardous chemicals at the national and regional level, and for available alternatives to these products, including examples of best available techniques (BAT) and best environmental practices (BEP) proved in the region (ecological agriculture, in situ decontamination and others); iii) be a useful knowledge base for collaborative programs with international organizations and/or bilateral donors; iv) help to establish some key elements suggested by the countries in the list published in Program Area E of Agenda 21 to establish or improve national systems for the management of chemicals.

To date, with the assistance of a group of experts of the region, algorithms for the generation of new information are being developed (comparative listings, tendencies, histograms, etc.) as well as the design of the Web Portal where the final version of the database will be available

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