BAT and BEP as instruments for reducing emissions of unintentionally produced POPs and development of guidelines under the Stockholm Convention.

Abstract

The 6th Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC 6), under the Stockholm Convention on POPs, gave an expert group the mandate to develop guidelines for the application and implementation of best available techniques (BAT) and best environmental practices (BEP) for the prevention and reduction of unintentionally produced and emitted POPs, including polychlorinated dibenzodioxins/-furans (PCDD/Fs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB). Measures to reduce or eliminate the release of these POPs to the environment can be found in Article 5 of the Convention. BAT and BEP are already being applied as emission reduction instruments in a number of industrialised countries and are elements of other major international treaties, e.g. the UN ECE Protocol on POPs and the Marine Convention's OSPAR and HELCOM, and of the EU Directive for Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC Directive). Existing concepts are presented and compared with the requirements of the Stockholm Convention. Consequences, perspectives and questions for the future intersessional work of the above-mentioned Expert Group are discussed.