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MEMORANDUM

TO: PIERRE PORTAS, SECRETARIAT TO THE BASEL CONVENTION

FROM: MIKE HARRIS, MEMBER OF THE SMALL WG ON POPS WASTE GUIDELINES

SUBJECT: COMMENTS ON DRAFT POPS WASTE GUIDELINES (OCTOBER 2002 DRAFT FROM SENES)

DATE: 03/12/2002 10:49

CC: JOE WITTWER (CHAIR) AND MEMBERS OF THE SMALL WG ON POPS

POPS WASTE GUIDELINES COMMENTS ON OCTOBER 2002 DRAFT FROM SENES CONSULTANTS LTD.

On behalf of the chemical industry, I submit the following comments as a member of the small intersessional working group acting under the auspices of the Technical Working Group of the Basel Convention. The comments relate to the second review draft (October 2002 – somewhat optimistically labelled “Final Draft” by the consultants) of the POPs Waste Technical Guidelines provided by SENES Consultants Ltd.

These comments are in two parts- General and technical comments – forming Annex I to this note.- Detailed textual comments in mark-up mode on the draft Technical

Guidelines and the (incorporated) table comparing technologies – forming Annex II to this note.

In our view this second draft, while marking a very substantial advance on the original draft of June 2002, still requires quite a lot of work before it can meet the generally high standard of other Technical Guidelines prepared under the auspices of the Basel Convention. The main tasks to be completed in preparing the next draft are to achieve internal consistency, to clear up remaining factual inaccuracies, and to exhaustively edit the text to something approaching a publication standard.

Unlike other Technical Guidelines under the Basel Convention, which serve in an advisory function, these POPs Waste Guidelines are also likely to form the basis for policy-making and action under another convention – the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants – including the possible development of legally binding measures under Article 6 of that Convention. In our view this greatly increases the need for a careful, objective and critical analysis of the subject matter – together with a high standard of editing an internal consistency to avoid ambiguity and possible future legal or regulatory difficulties. The present draft does not fully succeed in meeting these objectives and requires further refinement and editing – particularly before it can be formally submitted to the authorities of the Stockholm Convention.

PROP: DR M R HARRIS

We appreciate the opportunity to make these comments and look forward to seeing a further draft of the Guidelines.

Mike Harris, for the World Chlorine Council

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Annex I. General and Technical Comments1. General Issues

a. Factual Content and Policy Issues:

We welcome the major progress made in improving the factual content, in providing more of a critical analysis of technologies, and in achieving better consistency on policy issues with the Basel and Stockholm Conventions. While we are still suggesting considerable editing of this second draft, we believe that most of our suggestions are relatively non-controversial in terms of policy. The main tasks to be completed in preparing the next draft are to achieve internal consistency, to clear up remaining factual inaccuracies, and to exhaustively edit the text to something approaching a publication standard.

b. Language and Editing: We welcome the more neutral language adopted in much of the second draft, while regretting that in a few places unnecessarily pejorative language remains that adds nothing to the content and only risks causing controversy. We also welcome the many revisions that move towards using the language of the Stockholm Convention where appropriate rather than attempting a paraphrase. These two areas of improvement now require carrying through to completion, with particular attention to internal consistency to avoid ambiguities in interpretation, and the avoidance of unnecessarily controversial language. A further editorial issue is the need for thorough and careful editing to remove the very large number of typographical errors, spelling and grammatical mistakes that still remain. The use of a spell- and grammar checker would greatly improve the readability of the document. Most of these errors are highlighted in the annexed marked-up text.

c. Bibliography: We would question whether there is any added value in the ‘bibliography’ provided in addition the ‘references’ as the former larger duplicates the latter. If the bibliography is to be retained the perhaps all duplicate entries could be removed and the section renamed as “additional reading”.

d. Use of Manufacturers’ Literature from Web Sites: We welcome the removal of unedited citations from manufacturers’ literature.

e. Use of References: The draft would benefit from a further critical review of references, giving preference to objective primary sources rather than to secondary or tertiary references drawn from newspapers, industrial sources (manufacturers’ sales literature) or environmental sources (environmental pressure groups).

f. Acknowledgements: Policy advice is sought from the Secretariat as to the appropriateness or otherwise of the acknowledgements made in the present draft to the individual members of the Small Working Group. The ‘protest’ about ‘innumerable hours should certainly be deleted.

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2. Legal Convention Issues

We welcome the removal of proprietary names except where essential for the identification of wastes, and the removal of inappropriate references to intellectual property. However, careful editing is required to meet the legal obligation to indicate proprietary names (including trade names and trade marks) unequivocally, e.g. by insertion within inverted commas.

3. Convention Issues

a. Transboundary Movement of Wastes: Subject to advice from the Secretariat, it would seem useful for the Guidelines to address the dilemma that is currently created by the apparent refusal of some governments (and many ENGOs) to accept the transboundary movement of wastes from developing countries for environmentally sound disposal in appropriate equipment in developed countries. The insistence on treatment of wastes and obsolete stockpiles in the country where they are currently situated may be seen by some to unduly limit the options for dealing with such wastes in the most environmentally sound manner. This is particularly difficult in the case of POPs wastes and, although the Guidelines are probably not the place to resolve the issue, it might be helpful if the Guidelines indicated that the issue exists in order that Parties may choose to consider, in an appropriate forum, how this situation might be ameliorated.

4. Listing of Sources

We welcome the revision in some parts of the text that uses the definitions and source listings of the Stockholm Convention. This principle should now be extended throughout the document (see Annex II to this submission).

5. Definition of Low POPs Content

a. “Low POPs Content”: We welcome the inclusion of the “BAT” concept in the discussion of “low POPs content” and find this particularly apposite in view of the ongoing work on BAT/BEP under the auspices of the Technical Working Group of the Basel Convention. The retention of the concept of the development of a global quantitative definition of “low POPs content” is also legitimate for the purposes of discussion, although we would welcome a critical analysis of the difficulties that this would present and would suggest a clearer conclusion in favour of the “BAT” approach as already foreseen in the Stockholm Convention and the ongoing work under the Basel Convention. The present Guidelines should leave the issue open to consideration of alternative approaches, for example building in a flexible (and pragmatic) manner on the concept of BAT already enshrined in the Stockholm Convention. They could perhaps point up the alternative approaches and recommend that the Parties to the Basel and Stockholm Conventions consider the matter further in order to provide further guidance.

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6. Health and Environmental Issues

a. General: We are still concerned that at some points the draft delves too deeply into health and environmental issues which, while relevant to the designation of substances as POPs (which is a given in the scope of this paper, being restricted to substances so designated under the Stockholm Convention). Health and environmental issues are only relevant to these Guidelines, if at all, if there are issues specifically relevant to the disposal of POPs wastes. The health and environmental properties of POPs are exhaustively documented elsewhere in documents far better suited to the purpose. The Guidelines should simply report that POPs have been so designated because of their adverse health and environmental properties. This would avoid unnecessary controversy about toxicological issues (e.g. threshold vs. non-threshold mechanisms of carcinogenicity) that are not germane to the subject of waste treatment and disposal. Furthermore, the text of the Guidelines should try to avoid the necessity of frequent updating in the light of new knowledge or even of newly identified POPs – where again the POPs Review Committee under the Stockholm Convention is the most appropriate expert body.

7. General Technology Issues

a. Storage vs. Destruction: The revised draft greatly benefits from a much clearer distinction between storage technologies and destruction technologies. However, even greater clarity would be achieved by re-ordering the text (see suggestions in Annex II to the present submission).

b. Concentration vs. Destruction (or Irreversible Transformation): The revised draft greatly benefits from a much clearer distinction between (i) technologies (such as thermal desorption) for concentrating POPs in dilute wastes streams (to facilitate subsequent treatment by other technologies capable of achieving destruction or irreversible transformation), and (ii) technologies which are themselves capable of destruction and/or irreversible transformation.

c. Destruction and Removal Efficiency (DRE): We welcome the clarification regarding quantitative DRE values to be found in a footnote in the present draft1. This issue is sufficiently important in any discussion of DRE standards that we believe that it should, however, be dealt with clearly in the body text. The draft also requires careful editing, as this improvement is not reflected at all points in the text, leading to internal inconsistencies.

d. Techniques vs. Management: The draft would still benefit from a clearer recognition of the crucial difference between techniques (including technologies) per se (Best Available Techniques, BAT) and the management and practical operation of these techniques (Best 1 I.e. the fact that a technology capable of a 99.9999% DRE when applied to a POP waste stream with 100% POPs content will only be capable of a much lower DRE (perhaps only 99%) when the input waste stream is dilute, i.e. contains, say, only 1% of POPs material.

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Environmental Practice, BEP). The draft would benefit from a much clearer recognition that the environmental performance of all processes will depend critically on their competent management and operation – and that this will be often be far more important than the nature of the wastes being handled. This point may be particularly important for use of the Guidelines in developing countries, and for the comparison between the suitability of different techniques – which may result in different conclusions in different countries operating at different levels of expertise and under different social and economic conditions.

e. Crucial Importance of Safety: The present draft, while somewhat improved, still pays insufficient attention to some of the safety issues (particularly worker safety) associated with the operation of some of the technologies discussed. Some revision would lead to a better balance between environmental, health and safety considerations.

f. UNIDO Paper: Great reliance is placed on a single paper, among many, presented at a single conference (UNIDO), among many using language that suggests that this is an authoritative view and/or UNIDO policy. It does not appear to be either of these things and, while a most useful contribution to discussion of some of the issues, it should not be accorded some sort of ex cathedra standing. A further difficulty is that the language of the paper is very difficult to understand, even in the citations used, even for an English speaker. It would be better, and less controversial, to paraphrase the arguments in more concise form, and for the present Guidelines to develop their own conclusions – arrived at by consensus within the TWG.

8. Specific Technology Issues

a. Rotary Kilns: The draft in places tends to equate incineration with the use of rotary cement kilns – although in other places it does recognise that rotary cement kilns are just one variant of combustion technology (not necessarily always representing BAT for hazardous wastes).

b. PCB Wastes: Much of the section on PCB wastes could be removed. The treatment is unnecessarily detailed in view of the existence of a separate and more detailed set of a separate set of Basel Guidelines on PCB wastes. These other guidelines could simply be cross-referenced and the discussion kept much shorter.

c. Molten Metal and Base-Catalysed Decomposition Technologies: There is a degree of overlap and confusion between Section 4.4.4 (Molten Metal Technologies) and Section 4.4.7 (Chemical Dehalogenation Technologies). This arises because treatment of wastes with a molten alkali metal (such as sodium) results in chemical dehalogenation. There is also some confusion within Section 4.4.4 itself as between molten metal and molten slag technologies. An attempt has been made in the attached mark-up (Annex II) to deal with these confusions in a conservative fashion, i.e. without imposing any major restructuring on the text of the present draft. However, we suggest that the consultants may wish to examine

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these sections and to see whether a clearer exposition could be achieved by a more substantial rewrite.

9. Detailed Issues

See Annex II. The foregoing points are detailed – with suggested textual amendments - in the marked-up text of the second draft that forms Annex II to the present submission. An attempt has also been made in the mark-up to identify as many as possible of the typographical, orthographical and grammatical errors in order to facilitate the preparation of the next draft.

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Annex II. Mark-up Copy of October 2002 Draft

Note: The convention applied in the marked-up text that follows is to use strikeout for deletions, underline for additions and colour change for formatting changes (the colours of the changed text will depend on the settings of the computer used to read this document). In addition, where explanatory comments – or questions – are included in the text for the purposes of transparency and open discussion, these additions are made in italics and between square brackets. These comments are, of course, not intended for inclusion in the final text.

For compactness, the actual marked-up draft is included in this document as an embedded object. Access to the file may be obtained by double-clicking on the icon below: