IPEN

Later this month the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the multinational company Unilever will be honored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) as a Champion of the Earth.

Sadly, many communities and children have been affected by mercury pollution from a former thermometer factory run by Hindustan Unilever Ltd. in Kodaikanal, India. The Unilever corporation has rejected requests from the community to clean the mercury waste that is still contaminating the area, despite the factory having been closed since 2001.

This letter from IPEN and Pesticide Action Network (PAN) was circulated to delegates that will attend the upcoming 4th Conference on International Chemicals Management (ICCM4) to ask for support to establish a Global Alliance to Phase-out Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) at the Conference. IPEN and PAN believe that such an Alliance, building on lessons learned by the successful SAICM Global Alliance for the Elimination of Lead in Paint, is vital for assisting countries to adequately deal with HHPs and their replacement in a manner that supports the livelihoods of farmers.

Read the letter in multiple languages here.

Visit IPEN's ICCM4 webpage here. 

More information on why action on HHPs is needed can also be found here. 

IPEN worked with partners Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF) to send a letter to the European Commission about the European Union's position on the recent proposal to recycle materials containing the toxic flame retardant DecaBDE. This proposal will be addressed at the upcoming meeting of the Stockholm Convention POPs Review Committee (POPRC) in October and the letter urges the Commission to take a clear position against recycling materials containing DecaBDE.

On August 11, 2015, in Minsk, Belarus, the second sub-regional seminar of IPEN Participating Organisations was completed. The event was coordinated by Eco-Accord, IPEN Hub for Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA), and Centre of Environmental Solutions (CES), Belarus, and was attended by NGOs from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine, and representatives of IPEN and the Organization for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) in Ukraine. They discussed issues associated with strengthening civil society organisations working on chemical safety. The first seminar of the series was held in June 2015, in Almaty, for Central Asia countries.