The shipment of hazardous pesticides collected from 23 warehouses in different districts of Nepal will first be sent to Kolkota of India through Birgunj. [break]
Then, the shipment will be sent to Germany through sea via Malaysia and Egypt. “The shipment will leave Nepal no later than next week,” said an official at the Ministry of Environment (MoE).
The shipment, which should have already left Nepal by now, was slightly delayed after Malaysia sought assurance from Nepal, according to reliable sources. Malaysia, according to sources, asked Nepal to produce a written commitment to take responsibility if anything went wrong in the course of sending the pesticides to Germany.
According to sources, the shipment will leave Nepal once the MoE sends the letter to Malaysia. However, a senior official at the MoE claimed that the delay was owing to “issues of internal management”.
An international company assigned by the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ) has already finished packaging of the pesticides. The company selected by the GIZ will burn all hazardous pesticides at an incineration in Germany.
The hazardous pesticides have been stored in Nepal for over 25 years now. These pesticides were provided to Nepal by various countries, mainly Germany for agricultural purposes. However, a total of 74.23 tons of different hazardous chemicals, including DDT, remained unused.
Environmentalists had long been decrying the delay in disposing of these outdated pesticides.
As per the Stockholm and the Rotterdam Convention, of which Nepal is a signatory to, such hazardous pesticides should be disposed of by the company which manufactured them.
However, since most of companies that manufactured these hazardous pesticides have already shut down, Nepal had asked GIZ for disposing of the pesticides.
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