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Highlights Front Roll

BRS COP 2025
Semia Gharbi Wins Goldman Environmental Prize!
Plastics Treaty INC-5
Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals: Threats to Human Health
Chemical Recycling: A Dangerous Deception
See StopPoisonPlastic.org - our website on toxic plastics
New Report: The Arctic’s Plastic Crisis

The true costs of the chemical industry's products include more than just the costs to produce them. The costs of illness and environmental devastation amount to over $1 trillion (USD) per year, paid for by the public rather than the chemical industry.

Watch IPEN's new 5-minute video, screened at the 4th International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM4), to see some of the people and places affected by the chemical industry's products and their externalized costs.

IPEN’s Asian Lead Paint Elimination Project was developed to eliminate lead in paint in seven Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

The Asian Lead Paint Elimination Project is one part of a larger campaign to eliminate lead paint worldwide. In 2007 and 2008, NGOs in IPEN’s network collected and analyzed decorative (home use) paints on the market in 11 developing countries, and in countries with economies in transition. The results were startling. In every one of these countries, many of the solvent-based, decorative enamel paints contained dangerously high lead levels. In response, IPEN launched a worldwide lead paint elimination campaign. Since then, IPEN-affiliated NGOs and others have sampled and analyzed paints on the market in approximately 40 low- and middle-income countries.

This report tells the story of how seven Asian countries succeeded in reducing lead levels in paint in their countries and highlights the project accomplishments in each country. Read it here. 

Press release (Geneva): More than a thousand non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from more than 100 countries called for the creation of a Global Alliance to Phase-out Highly Hazardous Pesticides (HHPs) today at the opening session of the world’s only forum on international chemical safety.

“In many developing and transition countries, ordinary conditions of pesticide use are a source of significant harm to farmer and ecosystem health. That’s why the governing Council of the UN Food and Agricultural Organization called for the progressive ban of HHPs in 2006. However, to this day, HHPs continue to be widely used and there is no comprehensive, international approach to their phase-out,” said Olga Speranskaya, IPEN Co-Chair. “It’s time for this meeting to take that step.”

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.

The IPEN Quick Views document is a summary statement of some IPEN views about issues that will be taken up at the 4th International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM4), including, among others, highly hazardous pesticides, chemicals in products, lead in paint, electronics, the overall orientation and guidance (OOG) document, endocrine disruptors, nanotechnology and finances. Read the Quick Views here.

Visit IPEN's ICCM4 website here. 

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. 

The 2006 decision that established the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) expires in 2020. In this thought starter, IPEN highlights some ways that SAICM has proven to be an extremely important international framework for promoting and advancing chemical safety objectives, and offers some suggestions to address the urgent question: what comes next? 

The 4th meeting of the International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM4) for the SAICM will be held in Geneva from 28 September to 2 October 2015 and numerous IPEN Participating Organization representatives will be attending. Check our page here to find more ICCM4-related documents from IPEN, as well as information about IPEN's priorities for the conference, events during the conference, and more. 

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