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Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with persistent organic pollutants

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Table of Contents

  1. Preamble
  2. Paragraph 1.
  4. Paragraph 3.
  5. Paragraph 4.
  6. Paragraph 5.
  7. Paragraph 6.
  8. Paragraph 7.
  9. Paragraph 8.
  10. Paragraph 9.
  11. Paragraph 10.
  14. Paragraph 13.
  15. Paragraph 14.
  16. Paragraph 15.
  17. Paragraph 16.
  18. Paragraph 17.
  19. Paragraph 18.

Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with persistent organic pollutants

The Conference of the Parties
1.Welcomes with appreciation the contribution made by Canada in chairing the small intersessional working group and expresses its appreciation to the lead countries – Canada, China and Japan – the lead organizations – the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations – and the small intersessional working group for their contributions to the tasks pertaining to technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of persistent organic pollutants and to the Government of Norway for its financial contribution;
2.Adopts the following technical guidelines:
(a)General technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with persistent organic pollutants;11UNEP/CHW.12/5/Add.2/Rev.1.
(b)Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, its salts and perfluorooctane sulfonyl fluoride;22UNEP/CHW.12/5/Add.3/Rev.1.
(c)Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes containing or contaminated with unintentionally produced polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, polychlorinated dibenzofurans, hexachlorobenzene, polychlorinated biphenyls or pentachlorobenzene;33UNEP/CHW.12/5/Add.4/Rev.1.
(d)Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, polychlorinated terphenyls or polybrominated biphenyls including hexabromobiphenyl;44UNEP/CHW.12/5/Add.5/Rev.1.
(e)Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with hexabromodiphenyl ether and heptabromodiphenyl ether, or tetrabromodiphenyl ether and pentabromodiphenyl ether;55UNEP/CHW.12/5/Add.6/Rev.1.
(f)Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with hexabromocyclododecane;66UNEP/CHW.12/5/Add.7/Rev.1.
(g)Technical guidelines on the environmentally sound management of wastes consisting of, containing or contaminated with the pesticides aldrin, alpha hexachlorocyclohexane, beta hexachlorocyclohexane, chlordane, chlordecone, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, lindane, mirex, pentachlorobenzene, perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, technical endosulfan and its related isomers or toxaphene or with hexachlorobenzene as an industrial chemical;77UNEP/CHW.12/5/Add.9.
3.Requests the Secretariat to disseminate the technical guidelines referred to in paragraph 2 above to parties and others in the six official languages of the United Nations;
4.Invites parties and others to use the technical guidelines referred to in paragraph 2 above and to submit, not later than two months before the thirteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties, through the Secretariat, comments on their experience in so doing;
5.Requests the Secretariat to prepare a compilation of the comments referred to in paragraph 4 above for consideration by the Conference of the Parties at its thirteenth meeting;
6.Decides to extend the mandate of the small intersessional working group established by paragraph 9 of decision OEWG-I/4 to provide that the group shall monitor and assist in the review, updating and preparation, as appropriate, of technical guidelines regarding persistent organic pollutants, working in particular by electronic means;
7.Recognizes that in some cases provisional low persistent organic pollutant content values were established at the seventh and eighth meetings of the Conference of the Parties and that, in other cases, knowledge limitations have posed challenges to the setting of such values and that therefore a review of all provisional low persistent organic pollutant content values would be timely;
8.Decides to undertake work towards a review of all provisional low persistent organic pollutant content values in the technical guidelines referred to in paragraph 2 above before the thirteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties;
9.Invites parties and others to submit to the Secretariat, three months in advance of the tenth meeting of the Open-ended Working Group, comments on the low persistent organic pollutant content values included in the technical guidelines referred to in paragraph 2 above and related information, including on studies, taking into account relevant information available from the Stockholm Convention;
10.Requests the Secretariat to prepare a compilation of the comments and information referred to in paragraph 9 above for consideration by the Open-ended Working Group at its tenth meeting;
11.Decides that the updating of the general technical guidelines referred to in paragraph 2 (a) above and the preparation or updating of specific technical guidelines with regard to the chemicals listed in Annexes A and C to the Stockholm Convention by decisions SC-7/12–SC-7/14 of the Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention should be included in the work programme of the Open‑ended Working Group for 2016–2017, including with regard to the following:
(a)Establishment of levels of destruction and irreversible transformation for the chemicals necessary to ensure that when disposed of they do not exhibit the characteristics of persistent organic pollutants specified in paragraph 1 of Annex D to the Stockholm Convention;
(b)Determination of which disposal methods constitute environmentally sound disposal as referred to in paragraph 1 (d) (ii) of Article 6 of the Stockholm Convention;
(c)Establishment, as appropriate, of the concentration levels of the chemicals in order to define for them low persistent organic pollutant content as referred to in paragraph 1 (d) (ii) of Article 6 of the Stockholm Convention;
12.Invites parties and organizations to indicate to the Secretariat by 15 August 2015 their willingness to take the lead in updating or preparing technical guidelines in accordance with paragraph 11 above, taking into account the following tentative tasks:
(a)Updating the general technical guidelines referred in paragraph 2 (a) above;
(b)Updating the technical guidelines referred to in paragraph 2 (d) or 2 (g) above and/or developing new technical guidelines, as appropriate, taking into account decisions SC‑/12, SC-7/13 and SC-7/14, by which the Stockholm Convention listed the following new chemicals in Annex A to the Stockholm Convention:
(i)Hexachlorobutadiene;
(ii)Pentachlorophenol and its salts and esters;
(iii)Polychlorinated naphthalenes, including dichlorinated naphthalenes, trichlorinated naphthalenes, tetrachlorinated naphthalenes, pentachlorinated naphthalenes, hexachlorinated naphthalenes, heptachlorinated naphthalenes, octachlorinated naphthalene;
(c)Updating the technical guidelines referred to in paragraph 2 (c) above taking into account decision SC-7/14, by which the Stockholm Convention listed new chemicals in Annex C to the Stockholm Convention;
13.Invites the lead countries or organizations, if selected, and requests the Secretariat, if no lead country or organization is selected and subject to the availability of funding, in consultation with the small intersessional working group, to prepare draft revised technical guidelines as outlined in paragraph 12 above for consideration by the Open-ended Working Group at its tenth meeting;
14.Welcomes the involvement of experts working under the Stockholm Convention, including members and observers of the Persistent Organic Pollutants Review Committee, in the work referred to in paragraphs 8 and 11 above;
15.Invites parties and others to submit waste-related information on decabromodiphenyl ether to the secretariat and Norway by 30 August 2016;
16.Welcomes the intention of Norway to analyse the information received in accordance with paragraph 15 above and to share its analysis with the intersessional working group;
17.Requests the Secretariat to submit the information received in accordance with paragraph 15 above and the analysis conducted by Norway described in paragraph 16 above to the Conference of the Parties for consideration at its thirteenth meeting;
18.Also requests the Secretariat to report on the implementation of the present decision to the Open-ended Working Group at its tenth meeting and to the Conference of the Parties at its thirteenth meeting.