The government has set December 2014 as the deadline for eliminating organic chemicals, Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB), which is said to cause health and environment risks.

Officials from the Rwanda Management Environment Authority and other project implementers revealed the plans during a workshop in Kigali on Tuesday.

The elimination will help Rwanda meet its commitment under the 2002 Stockholm Convention obligations.

PCB is a group of organic compounds used in the manufacture of plastics, as lubricants, and dielectric fluids in transformers, in protective coating for wood, metal and concrete, and in adhesives, wire coating and so forth.

Experts say PCBs are highly toxic to aquatic life and persist in the environment for long periods of time.

The PCB project implementers are Rema, which is the national implementation agency, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Energy Water and Sanitation Authority.

The total budget of the project is $1.9 million (about Rwf12.5 billion given out by the three implementors.

The war on PCBs

The process to eliminate PCB in Rwanda began in 2005. Data at the time said EWSA was holding a most quantity of PCB oil, equipment and wastes in the country.

The main project output is to phase out 500 tonnes of PCBs in 2014, of which 150 tonnes are PCBs oil and 350 are PCBs contaminated equipment.

According to PCBs project manager Eliezel Ndizeye, the project will make an inventory of the volume and number of PCB-containing transformers and electrical utilities holding them.

EWSA will find a provisional site for the storage of collected PCB equipment, oils and waste before later being transported to other countries possessing appropriate incinerators.

PCBs are widely used in transformers, capacitors, and electric motors.

Because of PCBs’ environmental toxicity, their production was banned by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001.

Experts say there is evidence that PCBs can cause cancer in humans.

Donat Harelimana, from EWSA, who is also a PCB project steering committee member, confirmed the plans to replace the PCB-containing incinerators with the new and PCB-free ones.

"The PCB transformers held by EWSA are the old ones. We are phasing them out,’’ he said, adding that they will also create awareness among private companies.

According to the programme analyst in the poverty reduction and environment unit of UNDP- Rwanda, Peter Kamau, Rwanda, like some other countries, has delayed to phase out PCBs because of the delays of the funds from donors, especially the Global Environment Facility.