Asian countries unite against hazardous chemicals
A five-year initiative to the tune of $43 million will see the governments of Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Vietnam join forces to fight the tide of chemical pollution within their local textile industries, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has announced.
UNEP will lead on the project, it said, supported by financing from the multilateral Global Environment Facility fund. The scheme also has the backing of the Indonesia-based Basel & Stockholm Conventions Regional Centre for Southeast Asia and the Natural Resources Defense Council, headquartered in the US.
Their focus will be on helping each of the four countries align public policy with international best practice, to ultimately create an enabling environment most conducive to phasing out chemicals of concern such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS).
General manager of corporate sustainability and chemical management at Pakistani manufacturer Interloop, Fauz ul Azeem, suggested that a knowledge gap exists when it comes to the management of chemicals in some mills. “For any production facility, phasing out any chemical from the running inventory is a painful task,” he said. “They must realign all the running processes after carefully analysing quality, regulatory and cost impacts.”
