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Press Release
Bill to protect human health and environment from hazardous chemicals
The Government will introduce the Hazardous Chemicals Control Bill into the Legislative Council on May 24 with a view to regulating the import/export, manufacture and use of non-pesticide hazardous chemicals that have potentially harmful or adverse effects on human health or the environment.
A spokesman for the Environmental Protection Department said today (May 10) that these chemicals had been already covered by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (the Stockholm Convention) and the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade (the Rotterdam Convention).
The Bill, to be gazetted on Friday (May 12), also allows flexibility of regulating other non-pesticide hazardous chemicals in the future.
"The new legislation will enable the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) to comply with the Stockholm Convention and the Rotterdam Convention of which the People's Republic of China is already a contracting party," the spokesman said.
Under the Bill, an activity-based permit system will be set up and implemented by the department. Each permitted activity (i.e. import, export, manufacture or use) will be specified in a permit which is valid for 12 months.
The chemicals regulated under the Bill consist of Type 1 chemicals (two non-pesticide industrial chemicals regulated under the Stockholm Convention) and Type 2 chemicals (10 non-pesticide industrial chemicals regulated under the Rotterdam Convention). It is stipulated that the import/export, manufacture and use of any of these chemicals are not allowed unless specified conditions are met.
The spokesman said that an import/export licence would also be required under the consignment-based licensing system under the Import and Export Ordinance (Cap 60) for the import/export of the chemicals, which was very similar to existing arrangements for hazardous pesticides regulated under the Pesticides Ordinance (Cap 133) and the Import and Export Ordinance (Cap 60).
"In the light of comments from carriers about their difficulty in complying with the licensing requirements relating to transit and air transshipment cargo, the Bill provides that carriers need not apply for these licences under the Import and Export Ordinance (Cap 60)," the spokesman added.
However, in order to comply with the control requirement under the two Conventions, carriers will be required to obtain beforehand permits for the import/export of the chemicals, permissions from both export and import countries and to notify EPD of details with relevant documents within a period of seven days of cargo arrival.
The Stockholm Convention is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from the potentially harmful persistent organic pollutants. In implementing the Convention, governments will take measures to restrict the production/use and/or reduction/ultimate elimination of an initial set of 12 persistent organic pollutants identified by the United Nations Environmental Programme. The Central People's Government has applied the Stockholm Convention to the HKSAR since November 11, 2004.
The Rotterdam Convention aims to promote shared responsibility and co-operative efforts among the contracting parties in the international trade of certain hazardous chemicals and pesticides in order to protect human health and the environment from potential harm. It has introduced a mandatory Prior Informed Consent Procedure to monitor and control the import and export of certain hazardous chemicals and disseminate national importing decisions to the contracting parties.
The spokesman said that the Rotterdam Convention had not been applied to the HKSAR as it was not in a position to comply with the Convention without the necessary legislation.
Ends/Wednesday, May 10, 2006
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