Feasibility Study for ACAP Demonstration Project on improved system for collection, storage, transport and treatment of mercury-containing waste (MCW) in NW Region of the Russian Federation

• Main Author: Danish Ministry of the Environment, Danish Environmental Protection Agency
• Format: Report
• Language: English
• Published: Arctic Contaminants Action Program 2010
• Subjects: ACAP; Mercury; North West Russia; Mercury containing waste; Human health; Arctic; Murmansk; Arkhangelsk; karelia*; North-West Russia
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/11374/17

The ACAP Mercury Project is linked to a number of international agreements that address the mercury issue. The “Heavy Metals Protocol of the Convention on Long-range Transboundary Air Pollution (CLRTAP-HM)” is the only existing agreement that has the potential of covering all the Arctic Countries1. Three other major agreements are the “North American Regional Action Plan on Mercury”; the “Helsinki Convention ("HELCOM")” and the "Oslo-Paris "OSPAR" Convention", together covering all of the Arctic Countries, also addressing mercury. In addition, the UNEP Governing Council has agreed to the development of partnerships as one approach to reducing the risks to human health and the environment from the release of mercury and its compounds to the environment from the relevant sectors hereunder consumption, chloro-alkali, coal combustion and gold mining. The “Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)” is another relevant convention. The overall objective of the ACAP Mercury Project is to contribute to reduction of mercury releases from the Arctic Countries. In the first phase of the ACAP Mercury Project, preliminary assessments have been made to identify and quantify the mercury release sources, both specifically in the Russian Federation and across all the eight Arctic countries. In the report “Assessment of Mercury Releases from the Russian Federation” (2005) an estimate of the releases of mercury from the Russian territory2 is presented. During this project a questionnaire on assessment of the MCW management activities in 7 territories in NW Russia has been send out. The questionnaires have been followed-up by a mission to Murmansk, Karelia, Arkhangelsk, Komi, and Leningrad in October 2007 with the purpose to further assess the present status of MCW management in the participating territories. The roundtrip was completed by a meeting with the Federal Service of Environmental, Technological and Atomic Supervision, Rostechnadzor in Moscow.