National Implementation Plan for Management of POPs in Jamaica.

This National Implementation Plan (NIP) for management of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) in Jamaica provides for defining Jamaica’s commitment to the full implementation of the 2001 Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. The Plan consists of a country profile, with general geographic, demographic, political, economic information, an overview of the current institutional and legislative framework relevant to the POPs issue and the status of POPs stockpiles and releases; the assessment on contaminated sites and wastes; the relevant activities of non-governmental stakeholders; the existing programmes for monitoring of releases and environmental and human health impacts of POPs; furthermore the Plan provides for Strategy and Action Plan elements, based on Policy statements and previously conducted gap analyses that identified institutional, infrastructure, human and other resource needs as well as regulatory and non-regulatory measures to implement the Action Plans. The analysis of the status of POPs chemicals includes: Polychlorinated biphenyl (PCBs) found in electrical equipments; pesticides; dioxins and furans released into water, air and soil; Hexachlorobenzene (HCB) emissions mainly from hospital incinerators.
The Strategy and Action Plan elements describe the government’s position on the integration of POPs management into the management of chemicals and other hazardous materials, based on a risk assessment approach and guided by the precautionary principle. The activities include the application of the polluter pays principle in decisions regarding the assessment, cleanup and remediation of contaminated sites. The goals of the NIP are: establishing suitable sites for the safe storage of all out-of-service PCB equipment by 2006; eliminating all in-service PCB equipment in the transmission system; disposal of all in-storage PCB equipment and other PCB materials by 2020; identifying all PCB and pesticide contaminated sites and providing for their decontamination; eliminating the risks to human health posed by the burning of waste; eliminating the risks posed by burning of garbage and sugar cane fields and by the burning of land for farming; establishing means to avoid the importation of unwanted pesticides and other hazardous materials. What is more, the NIP defines measures and activities for disposal of POPs pesticides stockpiles, with detailed labelling and identification; for reducing unintentional releases of dioxins, furans and HCB; for conducting monitoring programmes at potentially contaminated sites.