by Mr. Dakouri Raphaël Zadi

Côte d'Ivoire is situated in West Africa, in the sector north of the Gulf of Guinea. It covers an area of 322,462 km², which is 1% of the African continent. Its population is about 15,500,000 inhabitants. "The success of this country is based on agriculture" is without doubt a slogan, but there can be no doubt that it is more than a slogan.

Nowadays, not only is Côte d'Ivoire in the forefront of agriculture in Africa, but it carries considerable weight at an international level, since it is one of the main suppliers of tropical fruit. Côte d'Ivoire shows a steady increase in food production although it is not yet self-sufficient.

The risks of degradation of the environment posed mainly arise from agriculture and livestock production (the use of pesticides and fertilizers). Côte d'Ivoire has an industrial base relatively important in the region.

At the present time, one of the most difficult environmental problems that the world has to face is that of the management of hazardous wastes from industry, households and hospitals. Recognizing that this situation is unfavourable to human health and the environment, the international community, under the auspices of UNEP, has adopted a legal instrument on a world scale entitled "the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous wastes and Their Disposal".

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which we are discussing today, are included among the chemicals covered by this major convention.

PCBs currently arise from five main sources:

- Condensers, transformers and other electrical equipment using mainly PCBs;

- All other effluents including solvents and waste mineral oils used as secondary fuel;

It is estimated that world production during this period has greatly exceeded a million tonnes and most of this material is still in circulation.

The production of PCBs declined rapidly during the 1970s, as its uses became more and more restricted, and virtually ceased at the beginning of the 1980s.

PCBs were put on the market under many different commercial names:

FRANCE: Acelor - Phenoclor - Pyralene

JAPAN: Kaneclor

UNITED KINGDOM: Ducanol - Plastivor - Pyroclor

Steps have been taken to avoid or to eliminate production of PCB wastes, which mainly means monitoring the electric equipment still in service containing these substances (still a significant quantity). This mainly consists of transformers and condensers, as other types of equipment only contain a small quantity of PCBs.

Côte d'Ivoire, like many other countries in the world, very concerned with the protection of the environment and human health, has ratified the Basel Convention.

On the strength of this ratification and of its industrial base which is relatively important in Africa, Côte d'Ivoire signed a letter of agreement with the Basel Convention Secretariat in June 1997, for the implementation of a pilot project on the sound environmental management of PCBs.

The following are the objectives of this project, the procedure for its implementation and the results of the working groups that were set up for the purposes of the project:

The PUB project has the following objectives:

This major operation will be carried out in two phases:

- First phase

• Second phase

1. First Phase

This phase consisted of communication and consultation activities involving institutional and private actors concerned with PCBs (Ministry of Health, Ministry of Industry, Ministry of Labour, Customs) those responsible for the maintenance of public establishments, maintenance companies (SEEE-COGIM, the Côte d'Ivoire Electricity Company (CIE), etc....

An information and awareness-raising workshop, for representatives of the ministries concerned, the private sector and non-governmental organizations, enabled participants to get a specific understanding of the details of the project:

A pilot inventory was drawn up to obtain some information about PCB transformers, identifying their owners, sites where used and the sectoral categories of transporters, in order to obtain some useful statistics.

This inventory also made it possible to produce an environmental diagnostic on each type of equipment, to ensure the sound environment management of working equipment in use, its storage and disposal or industrial use.

This is an essential and unavoidable step in the management of PCBs, despite the serious lack of information on the part of technical maintenance operators. The inventory was drawn up using a technical data matrix for individual electrical equipment using PCBs, in order to adapt listings to the local requirements of the Côte d'Ivoire,

The first phase did not include the search for a pilot site for the establishment of temporary storage for scrapped transformers awaiting disposal in sound environmental conditions.

2. Second phase

The second phase enabled a site to be found and major decisions to be taken for the implementation for the short- and medium-term national management plan in Côte d'Ivoire.

1. Inventory

In the short-term, an inventory of all equipment containing PCBs should be made. This inventory will be based on a questionnaire prepared by the Basel Convention Secretariat, and modified by us to adapt it to conditions in Côte d'Ivoire. The target group will be:

- Maintenance industries such as SEEE;

- Producers.

This operation should be started by the Chamber of Industry of Côte d'Ivoire sending out a circular to prepare businesses psychologically for the questionnaires to be sent to them.

Regulations to make the operation obligatory for businesses should be drawn up.

This work should be carried out by the Project Steering Committee with technical assistance from the Inspectorate for Classified Installations (SIIC).

2. Regulations

The success of the programme will essentially be based on the establishment of national regulations.

Since receiving the draft regulations from the Secretariat of the Basel Convention, we have emphasized the importance of prevention and the responsibility of owners of transformers and condensers (protection of the labour force, maintenance of equipment).

For maintenance, one or two firms should be selected by the Ministry of the Environment.

Laboratories that are specialized in the analysis of mineral oils and similar substances should be selected such as, for example, CIAPOL (Côte d'Ivoire Antipollution Centre).

Each firm should have a committee responsible for hygiene and safety. This committee will have ongoing contact with the Project Steering Committee.

The regulations will apply to new enterprises and also to existing ones, with special provision for the latter.

A national decontamination plan would be desirable, to be prepared under the supervision of the Ministry of the Environment.

3. Information, Awareness-raising, Training

Information and awareness-raising should be done by means of leaflets and car stickers, in seminars and through the media.

The target group will be professionals dealing with PCBs, the Faculty of Science of the University of Abidjan and the Department of Environmental Science of the University of Abobo.

Training will be specifically for small and medium industries and enterprises and will be carried out by consultancy firms from Côte d'Ivoire or from abroad. Government personnel should also be trained in order to follow up the project.

4. National management plan

It was decided in the short term to establish a national storage centre. For the moment, the analysis should be done by specialized laboratories, but with a strengthening of their capacities.

It is evident that through this pilot project, the Côte d'Ivoire Government is committed to short- and medium-term actions compatible with the requirements for the protection of its environment, of our environment.

The Steering Committee set up to meet these requirements, comprised of all of the partners concerned with the problem of PCBs in Côte d'Ivoire, should pursue its activities so as to implement these recommendations.