Federal Councilor Simonetta Sommaruga will open the international conference on risk reduction from chemicals and hazardous waste in Geneva on June 6th. The contracting states of three corresponding conventions meet until June 17th. The Federal Council has accepted the mandate for the Swiss delegation.

The conference on June 1 will be preceded by a ministerial meeting in Stockholm in connection with the international environmental meeting, as the state government announced on Wednesday. Three agreements regulate the worldwide handling of chemicals and waste.

The Stockholm Convention regulates persistent organic pollutants, the Rotterdam Convention regulates hazardous chemicals and pesticides, and the Basel Convention regulates hazardous waste. The contracting states of this agreement have been holding their conferences since 2013.

At the current conference in Geneva, the Stockholm Convention is about the worldwide elimination of perfluorohexanesulfonic acid (PFHxS) and related substances. PFHxS remain in the environment for a very long time and accumulate in humans and animals.

They are used, for example, to impregnate textiles against moisture, oil or dirt. No applications are known in Switzerland and the PFHxS are already banned.

In the Basel Agreement, Switzerland and Ghana also want the export of non-hazardous electronic waste to be declared. Even if such scrap is considered harmless, it can pollute the environment if it is not disposed of properly, the justification formulates.

The two industrial chemicals decabromodiphenyl ether and perfluorooctanoic acid are to be included in the Rotterdam Agreement. This leads to increased trade control. Both chemicals are banned in Switzerland. In accordance with the mandate of the Federal Council, the Swiss delegation supports all changes.