Experts flash red over Rubik’s cube's reds, blues and yellows

Hazardous e-waste is what the Rubik’s cube controversy is all about, stresses CEJ’s Executive Director Hemantha Withanage, explaining that toxic chemicals in e-waste should not be present in children’s toys.

Urging that this problem needs to be addressed globally and nationally, he says that the study was carried out on products in 26 countries including Sri Lanka. It was found that a large majority of the samples contained toxic chemicals.

CEJ had purchased five Rubik’s cubes for the study which had been sent to the Czech Republic of which two had been chosen for laboratory testing. The tests had ascertained that both samples contained OctaBDE and DecaBDE at elevated concentrations, according to Mr. Withanage.

The study had found that 90% of the samples collected from the 26 countries contained OctaBDE or DecaBDE, while nearly half of them (43%) contained HBCD.

These toxic chemicals – OctaBDE (Octabromodiphenyl ether); DecaBDE (Decabromodiphenyl ether); and HBCD (hexabromo-cyclododecane) -- are used in the plastic casings of electronic products. If they are not removed, they are carried into new products when the plastic is recycled.

“These chemicals are persistent and known to harm the reproductive system and disrupt the hormone system, adversely impacting on intelligence, attention, learning and memory,” said Mr. Withanage, pointing out that both OctaBDE and HBCD have been banned globally by the Stockholm Convention and there is a proposal for a global ban of DecaBDE under the same convention.

The study emerges as the global Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention met this week in Geneva, Switzerland, and will decide whether to continue allowing the recycling of materials containing OctaBDE and possibly make a new recycling exemption for DecaBDE. The treaty’s expert committee has warned against the practice, a media release from the CEJ adds. (The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is an international environmental treaty, signed in 2001 and effective from May 2004, that aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants – POPs.)

Calling on governments to end a “harmful” loophole, IPEN’s Joe DiGangi has said that recycling materials that contain toxic chemicals contaminates new products, continues exposure and undermines the credibility of recycling. (IPEN is a network of public interest non-governmental organizations working in more than 100 countries to reduce and eliminate harm to human health and the environment from toxic chemicals.)

Another critical move on the part of the Stockholm Convention Conference will be to establish hazardous waste limits. Protective hazardous waste limits would make wastes subject to the treaty’s obligations for destruction and not permit their recycling, it is learnt.

“We need protective hazardous waste limits,” said Arnika’s Jitka Strakova in the media release. “Weak standards mean toxic products and dirty recycling, which often takes place in low and middle-income countries and spreads poisons from recycling sites into our homes and bodies.”

The application of strict hazardous limits is also critical for brominated flame retardants due to their presence in e-waste. In many countries, the Stockholm Convention standards will be the only global regulatory tool that can be used to prevent import and export of these contaminated wastes, in many cases from countries with stricter legislation to countries with weaker legislation or control, the release explains.

“Sri Lanka is protected from hazardous waste under both the Basle and Stockholm Conventions. But the problem lies in implementation of these legal standards,” says Mr. Withanage.

Stressing that Sri Lanka is still far behind in the process of hazardous waste management and the authorities should be more concerned with consumer protection, CEJ’s Managing Director Dilena Pathragoda adds: “It is high time to implement chemical standards on children’s toys and ban imported toxic toys in the Sri Lankan market. It is the adults’ responsibility to create a safe environment for children starting with their toys.”