NATIONAL IMPLEMENTATION PLAN FOR THE STOCKHOLM CONVENTION.

At the policy level, Mongolia is aiming to link and harmonize the different activities on chemical management (POPs, mercury, ozone depleting substances, SAICM) as well as climate change mitigation considering short-lived climate pollutants which for emission reduction has a range of links to unintentional POPs reduction including open burning. Also, due to a large overlap of reduction of unintentional POPs and mercury in a range of industrial sectors, Mongolia will aim to harmonize the implementation of these two conventions where appropriate. Moreover, the waste management and the destruction of hazardous chemicals need to be addressed in a holistic manner and should address all types of hazardous chemical waste and their destruction, where appropriate, securing the co-funding in implementation.
Objectives are to improve environmental quality and protect human health from POPs harms through the establishment of proper management of waste, especially hazardous waste, reduction of POPs release from sources to the environment, cleaning contaminated sites and decreasing the use of POPs-containing products.
It is Mongolia’s view that dealing with the POPs issues in an integrative manner, as part of country’s framework action plans (chemical management, waste management, contaminated sites etc.), will end up in an effective implementation of the issues, bringing in the same time confidence to and attracting the international donors. For the purpose of regulating POPs related activities, banned use of 18 substances listed in the Convention Annexes and limited the use of PCB. Already at the national level came into force the Regulation on Registration, Collection, Transportation, Storage, Disposal, Import, Export and Transboundary Movement of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs). Acts on banning the use and import of POPs pesticides have been in effect, too. Also, specific provisions have been added to the Law on Waste and Law on Environmental Impact Assessment, and POPs reference values, as well as several analytical methods have been standardized nationally.
The overall objective of this NIP is to protect the environment and human health from the harms of POPs and implement the actions under following 5 key-objectives: (a) strengthening Regulatory and Implementation Mechanism of the Stockholm Convention; (b) reduction of POPs release in environment and further reduction of adverse effects on human health through the establishment of proper management of collection, recycling and environmentally sound disposal of wastes containing new industrial POPs chemicals; (c) reduction of PCDD/F releases from unintentional sources; (d) identification and remediation of sites contaminated by POPs pesticides; and (e) “PCB-Free Country”.
Mongolia is part of the Environmental Monitoring Program of Persistent Organic Pollutants in East Asian Countries, through which air samples were taken in background sites 3 times. Results showed the POPs pesticides pollution was lower in comparison to other regional countries.
Strengthening analytical capacity i.e. for analyzing toxic and hazardous chemicals and products and waste containing the substances, as well as for environmental monitoring, is important step in the limitation and reduction of using products that contain toxic chemicals and emissions. The Government is paying attention to and taking certain measures for health problems caused by increased urban air pollution due to the country’s climate condition and intensification of urbanization and industrialization. However, the effectiveness of the measures are not satisfactory. Therefore, it’s requisite to encourage practices of waste minimization at the sources, re-using and recycling to reduce air pollution and environmental pollution and application of BAT/BEP to reduce the emissions and releases. These measures and actions usually require high cost through investments in technologies, trainings and awareness raising programs.