Rotterdam Review Committee Recommends More Pesticides to PIC Procedure

At its eighth meeting, the Chemical Review Committee (CRC) of the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for certain hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in international trade (Rotterdam Convention) considered final regulatory notifications for two new chemicals, namely trichlorfon and dicofol, and recommended that the Conference of the Parties (COP) list penta- and octa brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs), as well as PFOS and paraquat in its PIC Procedure.

The sixth session of the COP, scheduled to convene in mid-2013 will take a decision on listing these chemicals in Annex III of the Convention, therefore making them subject to the PIC Procedure.

The eighth meeting of the CRC, which took place from 19-23 March 2012, in Geneva, Switzerland, considered decision guidance documents (DGDs), for penta- and OctaBDE commercial mixtures. Both chemicals, ubiquitous in plastics and foam rubber products, were listed in Annex A (for elimination) of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPSs) (Stockholm Convention) in 2009. CRC agreed to recommended that the COP list OctaBDE Commercial Mixtures, and pentaBDE and pentaBDE commercial mixtures, in its PIC Procedure. On PFOS, CRC agreed to perfluorooctane sulfonic acid, perfluorooctanesulfonates, perfluorooctanesulfonamides and perfluorooctanesulfonyls, should be listed in Annex III to the Convention as industrial chemicals.

For the first time, the CRC considered a severely hazardous pesticide formulation (SPHF), Gramoxone Super, notified by Burkina Faso. CRC agreed to recommend to the COP that liquid formulations (emulsifiable concentrate and soluble concentrate) containing paraquat dichloride at or above 276 g/L, corresponding to paraquat ion at or above 200 g/L, be listed in Annex III of the Convention.

The Committee considered notifications from the EU and Brazil of final regulatory action on trichlorfon, and organophosphate insecticide, agreeing that both notifications met the Convention’s criteria, namely that final regulatory action was taken as a result of a risk evaluation. The CRC will now develop a decision guidance document (DGD) on trichlorfon for its ninth meeting. Notifications of final regulatory actions from the EU and Japan were also considered for dicofol, an organochlorine acaricide. The Committee concluded that the EU notification met the Convention criteria, but that the Japanese notification failed to meet the criteria, as regulatory action was not taken on the basis of a risk evaluation. The Committee approved the EU notification, but will take no further action on the substance until a notification of regulatory action is received by another party, from a region other than the EU.