Enorm amounts of hazardous chemicals are traded illegally around the world. This is what a team led by the Chinese environmental scientist Hongyan Zou writes in “Nature Sustainability”. The researchers examined Chemical imports, which are regulated by the so-called Rotterdam Convention. Among other things, it states that certain hazardous substances may only be delivered to a country if the latter has generally agreed to the import.
The scientists led by Zou from Tianjin Normal University looked at the trade of 46 substances with a volume of 64.5 million tons between 2004 and 2019 that are covered by the agreement. According to the researchers, around 40 percent of these were traded illegally.
In view of this high proportion, the research group calls the trade agreement “insufficiently effective”. The team writes that the fact that dangerous chemicals can be imported into countries that have actually refused to import them is probably due, among other things, to a lack of awareness of the risks and insufficient monitoring by customs.
Pesticides and industrial chemicals were examined
The Rotterdam Convention was signed by 164 countries and entered into force at the beginning of 2004. The convention obliges exporting countries to provide importing countries with information on the toxicity and hazardous nature of the substances. Based on these assessments, importing countries have the option of accepting or rejecting the import of these chemicals.
The Rotterdam Convention is particularly important for developing and emerging countries, as they often do not have their own resources to carry out a comprehensive risk assessment of chemicals.
Zou and her team referred to pesticides and industrial chemicals, among others. They determined typical import and export countries for each group of substances and analyzed the common trade routes. In doing so, they only included commercial transactions that are regulated by the Rotterdam Convention. The study makes no statement about illegal trade far removed from the Convention and about black market trade.
The lion’s share of the hazardous substances considered in the analysis is ethylene dichloride, a chemical used in the manufacture of PVC that has been classified as a very high concern and carcinogen.
Industrial chemicals are mainly traded in Europe
The researchers led by Zou took a closer look at some chemicals whose use is heavily regulated or banned entirely in many countries. Nevertheless, these are still traded. In 2019, several thousand tons of tetramethyl and tetraethyl lead, known as an antiknock agent in petrol, were traded.
The situation is similar for organotin compounds (TBT), which were used as anti-fouling paints for ship hulls until 2008. These substances were also traded until 2019 – mainly from Europe to the whole world.
In the period from 2015 to 2019, pesticides were mainly exported from the United States and the Middle East and sold to Asia. Industrial chemicals were mainly traded within Europe.
However, Zou and her team also found a positive effect of the Rotterdam Convention. A declining trend in global trade can be observed for around 70 percent of the listed substances.
