Global Community to Ban PFOA, Water Pollutant

Governments have agreed to place a global ban on PFOA, a chemical that does not break down and causes adverse health effects at background levels.

PFOA and other fluorinated organic compounds (PFAS) have widespread industrial and domestic applications. Fluorinated firefighting foams are believed to be a leading cause of water contamination with toxic chemicals that pollute breast milk and are associated with cancer, endocrine disruption, and harm to fetal development.

The ban agreement was signed at the 9th Conference of the Parties (SC COP9) of the Stockholm Convention, which took place in Geneva, Switzerland, recently.

SC COP9 is one of the Meetings of the conferences of the Parties to the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS) conventions holding back to back in Geneva. They started on Monday, April 29 and will end on Friday, May 10.

Others are the fourteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Basel Convention (BC COP14), and the ninth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention (RC COP9). The theme of the meetings is: “Clean Planet, Healthy People: Sound Management of Chemicals and Waste.”

Governments at the SC COP9 also included several five-year exemptions for PFOA use in semiconductor manufacturing, firefighting foams, textiles claimed to protect workers, photographic coatings for films, and medical devices.

China, European Union and Iran obtained additional wide-ranging exemptions for fluorinated polymers, medical textiles, electrical wires, and plastic accessories for car interior parts. All three countries participated in the evaluation process, but suddenly asked for the additional exemptions at the meeting. Even the fluorochemicals industry repeatedly opposed these additional exemption requests due to the wide availability of alternatives.