Importation, use of PCBs monitored

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will now strictly monitor the importation and use of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs).

In line with this, Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Elisea Gozun has issued Administrative Order 2004-01, or the chemical control order, that provides the guidelines for the proper utilization, disposal and storage of PCBs, including the clean-up of PCB-contaminated sites.

According to the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), PCBs were widely used in various industrial applications for their insulating and fire-retardant properties.

In the 1960s, PCBs were found in soil and water, and researches confirmed that some PCB congeners degrade very slowly in the environment and can build up in the food chain.

Two widespread poisoning incidents in Japan and Taiwan were initially attributed to the consumption of rice bran oil contaminated with PCBs.

Although subsequent analysis suggested that toxic thermal degradation products of PCBs in the oil, rather than the PCBs themselves, were responsible for the observed health effects, commercial production of PCBs in the United States was discontinued in 1979.

According to the ACSH, some investigators have also suggested that PCBs and other chemicals in the environment can interfere with the body’s endocrine system, leading to infertility, certain types of cancer, and other hormone-related disorders.

However, evidence of the estrogenic effects of environmental PCBs remains weak and circumstantial.

The move to monitor the entry and use of PCBs in the country, according to Gozun, is in line with the country’s commitment to the objectives of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).

It is also in line with Republic Act 6969 or the Toxic Substances, Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act.

The Stockholm Convention is a global treaty that aims to protect human health and the environment from POPs.

The Philippines is one of the 151 signatories to the POPs’ Convention held in Sweden on May 23, 2001. The Philippine Senate ratified the Convention last Feb. 27.