UN Expert Meeting Charts the Way Forward on Hazardous Chemicals in Electronic Products

"The Vienna recommendations are a wake-up call for smarter designs that are inherently safer and which prevent harm from the beginning of the supply chain," said Mark Rossi, Research Director of Clean Production Action. "Consumers will demand greener designs and smart companies will listen."

The Korean Institute of Labor Safety and Health (Republic of Korea) and the International Labour Organization (Switzerland) presented information on how electronics manufacturing workers and nearby communities are currently being exposed to hazardous chemicals, the types of chemicals causing concern, recognition of adverse effects, controlling exposure, and how the SAICM agreement needs to address these issues.

"Protecting human health during production is more than posters and data sheets," said Amanda Hawes of Worksafe, based in Oakland, CA. "These new recommendations should begin a move toward a new manufacturing paradigm of true prevention and precaution which needs to be urgently implemented by large companies as well as subcontractors. We need a new model which truly protects workers and community residents." Additional workshop recommendations included promoting pollution prevention (including elimination of hazardous chemical use) and improving process designs; ensuring that subcontractors protect workers and surrounding communities; development of pollution reporting; and intensifying health monitoring for workers and residents.

Presenters on e-Waste included the Institute for Global Strategies (Japan), Shantou University Medical College (China), and the Basel Action Network (USA). Issues included the hazardous content of electronic waste, toxic exposures from electronic waste recycling in both developing and developed countries from metals and flame retardants, hazards of incineration and landfilling, the role of obsolescence and consumption in waste production, externalized cost, dumping of wastes from developed countries in developing countries, and the Basel Ban amendment among others.

"More than a decade of dumping toxic e-waste needs to stop," said Jim Puckett of Basel Action Network in Seattle, WA. "The Vienna recommendations provide a package of solutions including enforcement against illegal trafficking in e-waste, clean-up of damage done, and free take back programs available globally to consumers."

The international workshop on hazardous substances within the life cycle of electronic and electrical products was organized by the Secretariats to the Basel and Stockholm Conventions and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) which hosted the meeting in Vienna. The workshop is part of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM), a global strategy and policy framework to establish sound management of hazardous chemicals and wastes by 2020. Delegates included more than 30 government representatives from both manufacturing countries and countries affected by electronic wastes along with representatives from the private sector and public interest NGOs. The Workshop recommendations will be provided for consideration in SAICM regional meetings, a working group meeting in August, and at the 3rd International Conference on Chemicals Management in 2012.

The UN organizers invited key resource people to begin the meeting with presentations to inform delegates of current issues. Soon, presentations as well as the recommendations should be posted here: https://www.basel.int/meetings/wrks-eew-unido/index.html