POPs and Hg IN NEPAL Ram Charitra Sah - UNEP/LRTAP April 7-11, 2008 Environment Scientist/Executive Director
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POPs and Hg IN NEPAL
Ram Charitra Sah
Environment Scientist/Executive Director
Center for Public Health and Environmental Development (CEPHED)
Kathmandu, Nepal, Tel/Fax 977-1-4461508
cephed04@yahoo.com
UNEP/LRTAP
April 7-11, 2008
Center for Public Health and
Environmental Development
(CEPHED)
It ıs a Natıonal level NGOs based ın KAthmandu, capıtal cıty of Nepal
Goal: Improved environment management and public health.
Vision: Bridging people with science and technology for healthy living and
environment safety.
Mission: Acts as bridging forum between people with science and
technologies to made access to new scientific knowledge, technologies
and safety measures of environment and public health sector through
research, coordination, capacity building and policy dialogue.
Workıng area: NAtural Resource Mgmt., Envıronment Cons., and Publıc
Health
Nepal • Area of 147,181 Sq.Km., landlocked, Sindwitched between India and China. • Population:24.7million in 2004 with 15 % urban population • Annual population growth rate of 2.3%. • 5 DR; 14 zones; 75 districts; 58 municipality and 3914 VDCs.
Major Environmental Problems • Agriculture and Soil degradation • Forest and Biodiversity depletion • Air Pollution • Water Pollution • Waste (Solid, Medical, Pesticides, PCBs, PCDD/F, Hg) • Noise Pollution
Solid Waste Generation in Nepal
(58 Municipalities)
Status: 2003
Per-capita waste generation +Estimated
populati Total municipal waste
on generation
Household *Municipal (2003)
Urban Area of Nepal
(kg/cap./d) (kg/cap./d) (nos.) (ton/d)
Total of 58 1,169
Municipalitie
s 14.58 19.44 3,487,000
Average 0.25 0.34
Notes:
* Household waste assumed to cover - 75% of total municipal waste generation in average
+ : Population projection based on census 2001 and growth rate of period (1999 - 2001)
Composition of Solid Waste, Nepal
Inert, 9.6%
Recyclable
(paer , plastic, metal,
glass) , 19.7%
Ind. & Med, Organic ,
5.1 % 65.6 %
Solid Waste Management Problem • In general, waste are found to be dumped by the bank of rivers. • Out of 58 municipalities, 48(82.75%) dumped its waste in rivers, 7 (12%) dumped their waste in public land and forest land. • 3 Municipalities do not have any collection system. Impact: • River pollution, land pollution, spread of diseases, • Informal sector (women and Chidren) exposed greately
MEDICAL WASTE • Medical waste management has not been seriously looked so far by most of the municipalities and even by Health Care Institutions (HCIs). • These HCIs increasingly produce large amount of medical waste need to be safely managed. • Hospital in private house, laboratories, pharmaceuticals, blood banks, liquid waste, expired drugs etc. are least addressed issues in Medical Waste Management sector.
Major Cities and Medical Waste Generation
Name of the City Total infectious medical
waste (Kg/ day)
Kathmandu-2005 1705
Biratnagar- 2003 739
Dharan-2003 250
Bharatpur -2003 162
Pokhara-2003 200
Other Cities Not Available
General Overview of Medical Waste
Management
• Majority of HCIs do not practice safe waste handling, storage, treatments
and final disposal method at their own.
• Therefore they rely on the respective municipality services.
• The overall medical waste management in all most all HCIs are found to
be very poor.
• The lack of onsite separation and proper treatment results into the
contamination of total hospital waste from a small portion of infectious
waste ultimately mixed with City garbage dumped by the bank of rivers.
• Most of the large HCIs had promoted incinerators technology, source of
POPs ( Dioxin and Furan) for all types of waste rather than other
alternatives.
• Therefore the number of incinerators are more than that of autoclave and
Microwave.Vicious Cycle
Medical Waste Incinerator
Different incinerators in Nepal
Safer Alternative to waste incineration
• Separate at
Source
• Treat with non-
burning mode of
technology.
• Adopt the 3 R
principles.
• Protect
ourselves and
our future
generations.Pesticide Use in Nepal • Currently consuming about 200 tons of active ingredient of pesticides in Nepal as more than 300 commercial formulations • Government has periodically received pesticide from international sources as donation and aid and also purchased. • The pesticide remains unused and stored in several places. • Total obsolete pesticide remains in 25 locations in Nepal is about 74 tones, threatening local environment and public health.
Obsolete Pesticides by Groups
SN Pesticide group Symbol Amount in m. % of total
tons
1 Persistent organic pollutant POP 10.058 13.54
2 Organomurcury ORMER 8.383 11.29
3 Organochlorines ORCHL 10.408 14.02
4 Organophosphates ORPHO 7.958 10.72
5 Carbamates CARBA 0.543 0.73
6 Synthetic pyrethroids SYNPY 1.868 2.52
7 Mixed (mostly POP & OC MIXED 23.610 31.80
+OP)
8 Fungicides FUNGI 4.451 5.99
9 Rodenticides RODEN 2.606 3.51
10 Fumigants FUMIG 2.528 3.40
11 Herbicides HERBI 1.844 2.48
GRAND TOTAL - 74.257 100Products of Pesticide Company found in
Nepal
Pesticide producing company Country
Sumitomo Japan
Shell Netherlands
Sandoz, Ciba Geigy (both now Novartis) Switzerland
Union Carbide(Dow), Cynamid, Du Pont, Monsanto USA
Bayer AG, Hoechst, Degesch, Urania-Spiess, Linde Germany
Rhone Poulenc ( now Bayer) FranceSchool behınd the Pestıcıde
WarehouseSchool Playground Soil Contamination
PCB Contaminated Oils storage in Nepal Sample Source of Contaminated oils Quantity of oil from 25 major locations Total 107585.3 liters 92023 liters (>50 ppm PCBs) & 15562.3 liters (between
National Inventory of PCDD/PCDF
No. Source category Annual release g TEQ/y) Total/Sector
(g TEQ/y)
Air Water Land Product Residue
1 Waste Incineration 0.9000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0060 0.9060
2 Ferrous and Non 5.8200 0.0000 0.0004 0.0000 23.6831 29.5035
Ferrous Metal
Production
3 Power Generation and 38.0075 0.0000 7.4983 0.0000 0.0000 45.5058
Cooking
4 Production of Mineral 7.4345 0.0000 0.0076 0.0000 0.0000 7.4421
Products
5 Transportation 0.4347 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000 0.4347
6 Uncontrolled 108.6762 0.0000 35.2321 0.0000 12.9846 156.8929
Combustion Processes
7 Production of 0.1720 0.0000 0.0000 2.5713 43.0090 45.7523
Chemicals and
Consumer Goods
8 Miscellaneous 20.6918 0.0000 0.1864 0.0000 0.3734 21.2516
9 Disposal and Land 0.0323 0.0143 0.4939 4.3274 0.0000 4.8679
filling
10 Potential Hot- Spots - - - - - -
182.1690 0.0143 43.4187 6.8987 80.0561
Total 312.5568Effects of Pesticides, PCDD/F and PCB • Infertility –reported but disclosed. • Diabetics • Learning disability • Childhood cancers • Contaminate mother body and milk • Damage to developmental progress • Damage to reproductive system • Imprinted for life on the developing fetus • Accumulates in biological tissues • Some health effects (suppression of immune system, reduced estrogens level, which affects fertility, risk of diabetes increases). • Also cause genetic changes that result in cell proliferation, mutation or cancer. • Causes cancer in many different species of animals including humans. • Some pesticides are multi-species, multi-site and multi-sex carcinogen etc.
Awareness and Training
Workshop
Research on POPs issuesHg Issue in Nepal • Consumer County • No data exist on import, use and handling • Major consumption in – Health sector( equipments, lab, dental amalgam) – No data on quantity use • No seprate collection practice of waste and hence goes to either landfill or incinerators.
Conclusions • Prevailing of environmental pollution from initial to very serious toxic pollution needs immediate responses. • Government is trying to tackle the problem with legal and technical measures, still unable to improve as expected and up to desired level. • There ıs a lack of systematıc regular epidemiological study/data and hence required more study. • Environment and Public health needs to be protected from allto ensure viable and bright future of the country.
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