EDITORIAL - Hazardous substances

Crop pests are hardy, nasty creatures, and it takes powerful stuff to zap them sufficiently to ensure a good harvest. The problem is that what kills hardy pests can also be harmful to humans, and can linger long enough to wreak havoc on the environment.

This is one of the issues confronting global policy makers as they carefully consider the addition of more toxic substances to a list of 12 so-called Persistent Organic Pollutants or POPs. Organic fertilizer has gained popularity worldwide, but progress has been slower in the development of natural pesticides that are as effective as toxic chemicals but kinder on the environment.  

For developing countries such as the Philippines, there is another problem: they tend to be used as a dumping ground for toxic products that have been banned or are about to be banned in industrialized nations. This problem must be raised by the Philippine contingent to the fourth meeting next week of the Conference of Parties of the Stockholm Convention on POPs.

The Philippine government itself has been slow in joining international bans on certain toxic substances, including the pesticide endosulfan, which is banned in several European countries. Last year a 40-foot shipping container laden with endosulfan went down with the ferry Princess of the Stars off Sibuyan Island. Retrieval of the remains of some 800 people who died in the accident was slowed down by the possible leak of the toxic pesticide from the sunken ferry.

The COP4 in Geneva, Switzerland will tackle a proposal to add nine “unacceptably” toxic chemicals to the original “dirty dozen” POPs. Among the nine are pesticides, flame retardants and certain waste products. The original 12 include DDT — dichloro-diphenyl-trichloromethylmethane — whose ban continues to be challenged by those who believe it has proved effective in killing malaria-causing mosquitoes. Malaria kills a million people a year, mostly in the developing world. Switzerland’s Paul Hermann Muller in fact won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1948 for discovering that DDT was effective in killing lice, which spread typhus among soldiers during World War II and in several earlier wars.

Such debates disappear as substances are discovered or developed that serve the same purpose as the toxic ones, without the harmful effects. But even without safe replacements, the world must weigh the consequences of toxic pollutants on human health and the environment, and stop the use of certain hazardous substances. The Philippines must lend its vigorous support to such initiatives.