6 February 2009, Quezon City. A visiting technology expert assured the public of the environmental soundness of the technology to be used for the safe elimination of the country’s stockpiles of polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs that are generated mostly by the power sector.
Dr. Luciano Gonzales, technical consultant of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), gave this assurance last Thursday, 5 February, at the Environmental Management Bureau (DENR-EMB) in Quezon City, during his presentation of the treatment system to be employed in the destruction of the country’s PCB wastes and PCB-contaminated equipment.
During the presentation and the ensuing discussions, representatives of public interest groups such as the EcoWaste Coalition, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives and Health Care Without Harm raised various safety, health, and ecological concerns regarding the technology.
Asked if there were any incidence where a technical problem occurred in the system in its employment in other countries, Dr. Gonzales straightforwardly said “none”. He added that people welcomed the technology because the technology operator did “open-house, where people come and ask questions about the system and where they get answered openly and frankly. You have to disclose. There’s nothing to hide,” he said.
The technology, which destroys PCBs through dechlorination process by making the chemical react with sodium, meets two specific criteria in the technology selection process:
Firstly, the technology would operate in a system that is essentially closed. This is to ensure that uncontrolled releases of POPs and other substances of concern are avoided.
Secondly, the technology would be capable of achieving total destruction efficiencies (DEs) for POPs and other substances of concern that approach 100 percent. This conforms with the Stockholm Convention in terms of reducing “total releases” to all media with the goal of “their continuing minimization and where feasible ultimate elimination.”
The assurance was made a week after the technology selection was formally announced by Dr. Mohamed Eisa of UNIDO, the implementing agency for the project, during the UNIDO Mission to the Philippines late this January.
“This is good news as finally, a safe, non-burn, ecological process of dealing with our country’s stockpiles of PCBs in compliance with our obligations under the Stockholm Convention and the Chemical Control Order (CCO) for PCBs is available,” says Rey Palacio of the EcoWaste Coalition, one of the groups committed to ensuring meaningful civil society involvement in the project.
The country aims to phase out the use and storage for reuse of PCBs by 2014. This is much earlier than the Stockholm Convention’s 2025 phase out target for the toxic pollutant which has been linked to various health problems, such as its being a probable carcinogen.
Ecological Waste CoalitionUnit 320 Eagle Court Condominium,
26 Matalino Street, Quezon City
Phone: +63 2 9290376
Email: ecowastecoalition@yahoo.com
www.ecowastecoalition.org
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