A government nominates a chemical when it is concerned that the substance behaves like a persistent organic pollutant (POP), meaning the substance persists in the environment, travels long distances, builds up in living tissue, and causes harm. As the world grapples with the many problems posed by plastics, there are questions if some chemicals used in plastics have these POP characteristics.

The Chemical Review Committee is scheduled to review up to 22 new notifications covering eight candidate chemicals. Seven of those eight chemicals are pesticides: atrazine, azinphos-ethyl, endrin, mephosfolan, methomyl, phosphamidon, and prothoate. Only one, lead chromates, is an industrial chemical.

Ministers of the environment, heads of UN organizations, and lead negotiators called for focusing on scaling up implementation, underscoring that complex global challenges “must be met with cooperation, compromise, and collective action.” Nine thematic roundtable sessions explored cross-cutting implementation issues at the local, regional, and global levels.

Delegates faced the challenge of how the Basel Convention can meet growing, complex waste-related challenges such as trade in plastics, electronic waste (e-waste), batteries, and used textiles, while staying relevant to longstanding challenges such as ship recycling.