By Tatenda Gapa

THE improper disposal of insecticides, their containers and chemicals by various stakeholders will lead to disasters, birth deformities and fatalities in the near future.
This was said at a workshop recently held in the capital by the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate which discussed the need to move away from the use of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).
Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are chemical substances that persist in the environment, bio-accumulate through the food web, and pose a risk of causing adverse effects to human health and the environment.
The chemicals are highly toxic to humans and the environment, persistent in the environment, resist bio-degradation, are taken up and bio-accumulated in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems and are capable of long-range, transboundary atmospheric transport and deposition.
Countries world over are working toward eradication of these harmful products and advocating safer alternatives.
Some of these chemicals include Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), Dieldrin and Endrin
The Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate said there was need to place emphasis on the use of safer alternatives for the benefit of the country and future generations.
The workshop emphasised the need for awareness campaigns for consumers to know the risks associated with using products that contain POPs.
National project coordinator on POPs, Farirai Magadzire, said the danger was compounded by the fact that the pollutants could travel long distances through the air and water and are bio-accumulative in fatty tissue of living organisms.
“(POPs) persist in the environment for long periods and they have an ability to travel long distances from where they were originally produced and are bio-accumulative in fatty tissue of living organisms, so proper care in their disposal is key,” said Magadzire.
She said although POPs were not locally manufactured, they were present in imported chemicals mostly used as pesticides.
“POPs have historically never been formulated in Zimbabwe, but are used in imported chemicals such as Dieldrin, used for tsetse control and other pesticides found in supermarket shelves,” she said.
Magadzire said the ministry was in the process of enforcing the National Implementation Plan (NIP) to enable the country to implement its obligation under the Stockholm Convention.
The NIP is a guiding document for Zimbabwe to meet its obligations under the Stockholm Convention on POPs, a global treaty that aims to protect human health and the environment from toxic chemicals.
“Zimbabwe signed the Stockholm Convention in order to enable urgent global actions to reduce and eliminate releases of these chemicals, because they are harmful to the environment and human health,” Magadzire said.
She said continued use of POPs would be costly for the nation.
“In nature these substances affect plant and animal development and growth,” she said.
“They can cause reduced reproductive success, birth defects, behavioural changes and death.
“They are suspected human hazards that include disruption of the immune and endocrine systems.”
Often POPs residues have been found in the fat of fish and animals, as well as in human breast milk.
Reproductive failures, deformities, malfunctions in fish and wildlife are evidence of these persistent pollutants and the true extent of their effects on wildlife and human health are subtle and long-term.
In 1991, the Science Advisory Board to the International Joint Commission on the Great Lakes of the US and Canada, reviewed the literature on the effects of POPs on more than a dozen Great Lakes predator species including eagles, cormorants, trout, mink, turtles and others.
Their report found that all these species suffered significant health impacts including some combination of: population decline and reproductive dysfunction, eggshell thinning, metabolic changes, deformities and birth defects, tumours and cancers, behavioural changes, abnormally functioning thyroids and other hormone system dysfunction, immune suppression, feminisation of males and masculinisation of females.