Geneva-Today, the Stockholm Convention Conference of Parties (COP) agreed that the large group of toxic industrial chemicals known as medium-chain chlorinated paraffins (MCCPs) are among the world’s most hazardous substances (known as persistent organic pollutants or POPs) and should be listed for global elimination. MCCPs are among the highest production volume chemicals in the world and are used widely in plastics, including in toys, flooring, kitchenware, and other products, and in metal working fluids.
IPEN welcomes the decision to ban the large chemical group of MCCPs but warns that the long list of exemptions will perpetuate harm and result in large volumes of hazardous wastes to be produced for decades to come.
Unfortunately, the COP also for the first time in its history reopened a previous decision, allowing new exemptions on its 2023 ban of a highly toxic substance, the plastic chemical UV-328. The COP’s decision caves to industry influence, disregards its mission and precedents, and favors the interests of industry over its stated objective of protecting human health and the environment.
IPEN strongly criticized the COP’s decision to allow new exemptions to its 2023 ban on UV-328. This unprecedented action will allow ongoing pollution and global contamination by this chemical that in animal studies has been linked to damage to the liver and kidneys, endocrine disruption, and bioaccumulation.
“The chemicals governed by the Convention are the most hazardous substances on the planet – once the science has demonstrated that they pose unacceptable threats to our health and the environment, the decision to eliminate them should not be revised. By allowing new exemptions for a previously banned substance, the COP is jeopardizing the integrity of the Convention, undermining its scientific basis, and betraying its mission to protect human health and the environment,” said IPEN Science Advisor Therese Karlsson, Ph.D.
