Soyapango will be the pilot municipality
BCRC-CAM, San Salvador, December 12,
2012.
It was with great pleasure that the Basel Convention Regional Center for Central America and Mexico (BCRC-CAM), located in San Salvador, received the news of its selection as a recipient of the Sustainable Communities Program of the Organization of American States (OAS). This selection will confer the financial resources necessary to support the Central American Commission on Environment Development (CCAD) project to formulate a Regional Electronic Waste Strategy during 2013. The program, which supports community efforts in Central America and the Caribbean Island States will be supporting 14 projects in 9 countries and will also receive funding from the government of the United States of America.
Waste from electrical and electronic
equipment, known as WEEE, is the fastest growing waste stream in the world, as
a result of rapid technological progress mainly in information and
communication technologies.
If WEEE is recovered in an environmentally responsible manner, it can help to promote sustainable development, boost economic activity by creating a new sector of the "green economy" where the positive effect on the sound health and environmental practices is complemented by reducing the need to extract more non-renewable mined resources and may even permit their use as raw materials for new products.
Conversely,
in the absence of national or regional strategies, WEEE will be dismantled in
an informal manner with possible risks to the health of the workers and
potentially threats to population health and the environment. This potential
adverse impact is due to the fact that WEEE not only contains recoverable
metals and plastics, but may also contain toxic components such as lead,
cadmium and mercury. Certain computers also contain brominated fire retardants,
which are persistent organic pollutant and will endure in the environment for
200 years or more with the potential to cause severe health effects, especially
to the reproductive system and they are also considered to be a possible
carcinogen.
The
Secretary General of the OAS, Sr. José Miguel Insulza, said that the initiative
comes at a time when "the cities of the Americas are experiencing dramatic
and rapid changes that require the fostering of dynamic and more sustainable
cities, thereby reducing water and energy consumption while improving the
quality of life and community engagement "
Mr. Miguel Araujo, Director of
BCRC-CAM stated that "the American strategy for WEEE becomes meaningless if
we don’t ensure that it is adopted by a municipality, and accepted by the local
community. Hence the significance of the selection of
Soyapango as the pilot municipality which was in response to the Mayor's vision
of making El Salvador’s second largest city (500,000 inhabitants), a
sustainable city. So because of this, it is important to raise the awareness of
the “Green Economy” and promotion activities developed in this municipality”.
The
winning proposal was prepared jointly by the BCRC-CAM and the Executive
Secretariat of the CCAD, and was supported by the Mayor of Soyapango, FUNDEMAS,
ACEPESA, a Costa Rican NGO specializing in WEEE and the Consultative Committee
of the Central American
Integration System (SICA).
The
formulation of this proposal is in response to the decision of the Council of
Ministers of the CCAD taken in June 2012 in Roatan that recognized the need to
prioritize the environmentally responsible recovery of WEEE.
The BCRC-CAM receives financial support from the government of El Salvador for its core operations and facilitates cooperation at national, regional and international levels to promote training programs and technology transfer for the environmentally sound management of materials, substances and wastes in Central America and Mexico by working closely with governments, the private sector, NGOs and academia. BCRC-CAM is located in the Executive Secretariat of the CCAD, within the General Secretariat SICA.
Relevant Links:
OAS Press Release:
The project “Sustainable Communities in
Central America and the Caribbean” (http://www.oas.org/en/sedi/DSD/Biodiversity/Sustainable_Cities/SustainableCommunities.asp ) is financed by the
Permanent Mission of the United States for OAS.
See list of the 14 countries selected as beneficiaries:
(http://www.oas.org/en/sedi/DSD/Biodiversity/Sustainable_Cities/SustainableCommunities.asp).
Gallery of pictures of the event: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oasoea/sets/72157632221056535/.
Video of the event:
Gallery of pictures of the event: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oasoea/sets/72157632221056535/.
Video of the event:
http://vimeo.com/oastv.
Audio of the event:
Audio of the event:
Press
release of the Department of State of the United States of America: http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2012/12/201804.htm
BCRC-CAM sites:
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