Nepal to get rid of hazardous pesticides

A ship containing equipment meant for safely packing more than 70 tons of obsolete and hazardous pesticides stored in different locations of Nepal is expected to arrive in India soon.

According to Mina Khanal, spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment (MoE), the ship has already left off the coast of Germany for the Kolkata port of India. “The ship will hopefully arrive in Kolkata till October 10,” Khanal told Republica, adding, “The equipment will then be brought to Nepal. We are expecting to begin fieldwork for packing pesticide no later than the end of October.”

As per the tripartite deal reached between the MoE, the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC), and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) -- which later became a component of German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) -- in December last year, the GIZ has already awarded the contract for safely packing and disposing of obsolete pesticides to an international company.

"The company that has won the contract from the GIZ will pack and dispose of all the pesticides,” Khanal said. “We just need to accumulate all pesticides at one or two particular points.” The MoE is trying to find out appropriate places for accumulating pesticides from different locations so that the company will be able to concentrate on packaging and disposal of insecticide.

According to Bhupendra Devkota, an environment expert with the MoE, the company is expected to pack all the pesticides in three months. “Once packaging is done, our fear for leakage of pesticide that may result in a serious catastrophe will automatically lessen,” Devkota said. “Even after packaging, repatriation of pesticide to Germany may take a little longer. But then we need not worry about it.”

A total of 74.23 tons of different hazardous chemicals including DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane), which has been banned in Nepal years ago, and 43 cylinders of methyl bromide have been stored in 22 different locations of the country for over 25 years now. The biggest chunk of hazardous pesticides, around 55 metric tons, has been stored in Amlekhgunj of Bara district. Most of these pesticides were given by Germany to Nepal for agricultural purposes.

Environment activists have long been decrying the delay by the government in disposing of hazardous pesticide. They fear that the accidental leakage of pesticide may cause serious damage to humans as well as the environment, especially because these pesticides have been stored in the vicinity of human settlement in most places.

The company chosen for disposing these hazardous pesticides will burn them at an incinerator after shipping them to Germany. Nepal has already signed Stockholm Convention and Rotterdam Convention, which bans the use of certain chemicals. As per these conventions, such hazardous pesticides should be disposed of by whichever company has manufactured them.

However, in Nepal´s case, most of companies that manufactured the pesticides have already closed down. Therefore, Nepal had to request the GTZ, now the GIZ, for disposing of these pesticides.