Hazardous chemicals 0.1 meters away from your life? Observers for the International Convention on Dangerous Chemicals, such as CBCGDF, went to Duke University in Kunshan to discuss non-toxic life with teachers and students
2019/3/7 17:37:00 本站

I'm not working in a chemical plant. Do dangerous chemicals have nothing to do with me? Is it safe for me to work in a dust-free workshop? Which are dangerous chemicals? Where are they?... On March 3, on the eve of the Asia-Pacific Preparatory Meeting for the International Convention on Dangerous Chemicals, five environmental protection agencies, namely non-toxic pioneer, CBCGDF, IPE, full of Green for Jianghuai and Green Jiangnan, successfully became observers for the Conference to the International Convention on Dangerous Chemicals (BRS COPs) in 2019. They joined two other NGO partners from Jordan and India to visit Duke University in Kunshan to recognize the dangerous chemicals with their students and discuss how to build a non-toxic life.

 

Duke University of Kunshan, established in December 2012, is a non-profit Joint University founded by Duke University of the US and Wuhan University of China. Its educational philosophy is based on Duke University of the US, teaching in English. The school's policy environment education curriculum is popular with many students. Many people, including college students, lack knowledge of dangerous chemicals in their lives. At the start of the exchange activities, all members of environmental protection agencies and teachers and students from Duke University in Kunshan watched a Korean documentary “The Story of the clean room”.

 

The Story of clean Room was filmed by SHARPS, a public welfare organization engaged in occupational health education in Korea. It mainly interviewed 23 workers engaged in LCD screen production, subcontracting and other work, and their families. It truly reflected the hard experience of suffering from serious illness because of exposure to dangerous chemicals, as well as the long period of safeguarding human rights in real life. In the production of LCD screens, workers do not know what happened, but have suffered from serious illnesses. Most of them died several years later, and few people were lucky to be treated. The dangerous chemicals to human health is horrifying. Dr. Joe DiGangi, an international expert who participated in the Korean Survey of Victims of Hazardous Chemicals, answered students' questions about dangerous chemicals online after the documentary was shown.

 

Although the safety of dangerous chemicals in LCD screen production has been improved in recent years, similar hazards still exist in other electronic industries such as computer chips. Joe still lives in Korea and continues to strive for the elimination of dangerous chemicals. He will also be a representative of NGOs in the Asia-Pacific region at the upcoming Conference of the Parties to the International Convention on Dangerous Chemicals this year. Negotiations with the parties to the three conventions (Basel Convention, Stockholm Convention and Rotterdam Convention).

 

Since then, Ziyad, a representative of LHAP from Jordan, has shared with students at Duke University in Kunshan how to work with local governments to manage dangerous chemicals in order to avoid threats to the environment and human health. Tripti, an NGO representative from Toxics Link, India, also introduced a series of research achievements of her organization on chemical health management.

 

Five environmental protection organizations from China have exchanged with teachers and students of Duke University in Kunshan in the light of their work on hazardous chemicals and solid waste.

 

CBCGDF mainly introduced the environmental public interest litigation cases (such as Changzhou poisonous land and runway) initiated in recent years due to the harm of chemicals to human body, the policy suggestions on reducing the production of plastic waste, registration and management system for dangerous chemicals for the relevant state departments; IPE introduced PRTR system to promote pollutant discharge and transfer registration. Up to now, more than 1300 enterprises have released PRTR data on IPE platform; “Full of Green for Jianghuai” is committed to continuously promoting the improvement of China's hazardous waste policy and the ability of enterprise management of hazardous substances and solid waste; Green Jiangnan has published 93 reports on hazardous chemicals and solid waste management in the past seven years, directly used more than 500 million yuan for pollution control.

 

Representatives from Shenzhen's non-toxic pioneer said in the sharing, "The pollution problems we recognize about water, air, soil and food are all chemical pollution in the final analysis.” Establishing the life cycle management of chemical substances is the most effective way to prevent and control pollution at present. For example, this year's BRS COPs, the three Convention on international hazardous chemicals, is about to discuss whether it has been banned or restricted to a large number of fluoride in the appendix, which is widely seen in the lives of ordinary people, such as pigments, paint, shampoo, clothing (coloring process), nonstick pots, foam extinguishers, fast food packaging, etc. How to prevent the safety threshold of almost zero distance? In this regard, the representatives of environmental protection organizations and the teachers and students of Duke University in Kunshan have conducted in-depth discussions from the aspects of technology, policy and advocacy.


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(Photo credit: CBCGDF)


Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4937/7822.html


By / Li Xue