Minister inaugurates committee on management, disposal of PCBs

The Federal Ministry of Environment, Nigeria has inaugurated a 15-man Project Steering Committee, to ensure sound management of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs).

The committee is to ensure sound disposal of PCBs in Nigeria.

The Minister of Environment, Dr Muhammad Abubakar, inaugurated the committees on Tuesday 9 June 2020 in Abuja.

Abubakar tasked members of the committee to demonstrate a high sense of national patriotism, integrity and responsibility toward actualising the elimination of PCBs and associated burdens of morbidity and mortality in Nigeria

PCBs are classes of chlorinated organic chemicals that are used for a variety of industrial and commercial purposes. PCBs are not single chemical, but a group of related chemicals.

The ban on PCBs under Toxic Substances Control Act was primarily due to mounting scientific evidence that it accumulate in the environment and can adversely impact on human and other biota.

The minister said bodies of scientific evidences had revealed for over 50 years that these characteristics that made PCBs popular additives also represent humongous threats to human and environment well being, irrespective of creed or caste.

“Apart from being associated with burdens of diseases such as damage to the immune system, liver, skin and reproductive system, the International Agency for Research Cancer (IARC-WHO) has clarified some PCBs as Class 1 carcinogens.

” Nigeria joined the global community in negotiating, adopting and ratifying the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in 2001, which listed PCBs in the initial register of 12 POPs also known as dirty dozen.

” The convention bans the production and new uses of PCBs and requires parties to eliminate the use of PCBs in equipment by 2025.

“The convention also wants environmentally sound management of liquids containing PCBs and equipment contaminated with PCBs by 2028,” he said.

He said the ministry had accessed incremental supports of Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and the UNDP for the implantation of the environmentally sound management and disposal of PCBs in Nigeria which has five different components.

He said the components include institutional capacity and training on PCBs, inventory of PCBs in 22 states of Nigeria not previously covered by other inventories.

Others are establishment of PCB collection and treatment centre, environmentally sound disposal of identified PCBs and monitoring, learning, adaptive feedback and evaluation.

Mrs Sharon Ikeazor, the Minister of State for Environment said no doubt the expertise and resources on board pooled together would achieve smooth and result oriented project implementation.

Mr Charles Ikeah, the Chairman of the committee said the project which had a time frame of five years started in 2018 and to end in 2023.

“The project started in 2018 but the committee is being inaugurated today by the minister due to some hiccups which have been addressed,” he said.

He promised that the committee would work assiduously to ensure the success of the project.

By Francisca Oluyole