inventory, repackaging, transport and disposal of pesticides

Unsatisfactorily stored and utilized pesticides represent a rather big hazard for people as well as for the environment in many countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and even in Europe. Due to lack of proper purchase of pesticides in the past and storage in inadequate warehouses the environment and consequently mankind are endangered. Subject to official figures this hazardous waste material accounts to app. some hundred thousands of tons worldwide.

In Qatar for example GTZ ( a German association for engineering cooperation on international basis) was appointed to take care of this matter and thereby noticed that in 14 federal warehouses about 50 tons of pesticides were in a critical condition and, therefore, recommended a professional disposal of the latter of which. Priority was to exterminate the unusable and/or obsolete agricultural chemicals.

At present the only common procedure of disposal in an environmentally friendly way is the incineration in special high-temperature incineration plants. Such high-temperature incineration plants - which have to be in line with the regulations - are only located in OECD member countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) but not in Qatar and surrounding countries. After HIM was chosen to be the ideal partner for this project the following tasks occurred in connection with an overall contract:

• Collection of up to 50 tons of agricultural chemicals in the individual depots

• Professional packaging
• Organization of transport and logistics
• Safeguarding of proper disposal
• Insurance of procedure
• Responsibility and risk

This was a real challenge keeping in mind that we had to deal with hazardous material in a foreign country and a distance of almost 5000 km had to be managed passing through 6 countries (by sea and road traffic).

Precondition for shipping the waste passing several borders (notification) were various approvals , e.g. regulated in the Basler Convention and EC Abfallverbringungsverordnung (waste shipment regulation (EC259/93)) . Besides the approval by the German Regional Board Darmstadt (?) authorities from the following countries had to be asked for approval: Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Yemen and Belgium.

The necessary security equipment was handed to local laborers who also had to be trained in handling hazardous material. The warehouses were cleared and cleaned within 6 days. Needless to say, this could not be done in an eight-hour working day. Some of the obstacles were scorpions, praying ceremonies of the local laborers etc.

The pesticides from the cleared warehouses were then put into a temporary warehouse, Umm Al-Afai - which is close to Qatar`s capitol Doha - a safe place for pesticides until they were finally packed and transported to Germany. In order to find the right packaging at the beginning of this project samples were taken and analyzed in our lab in Biebesheim.

All packing material and personal security equipment were shipped directly from Germany to Qatar. Upon arrival this container had to be unloaded at the temporary warehouse and at the same time the required shipping containers had to be ordered which had to be loaded in the next few days and sent to HIM Frankfurt. The material was put in six 20  shipping containers aiming at utilizing the storage space as efficiently as possible and simultaneously packing the waste according to the acceptance conditions of the SAV in Biebesheim.

The storage and packing schedule was immediately sent to HIM Frankfurt in order to take the appropriate measures. After dealing with all the customs related paperwork and formalities our forwarding agent shipped the containers in three trucks from Antwerp to Frankfurt. In Frankfurt a crane was required unloading and vice versa reloading the trucks with the empty containers.

In March 2003 all involved authorities could be informed about the proper disposal of the pesticides and this unsual project came to a conclusion.