Persistent Toxic Substances in Thailand

Supawat Kan-atireklap, Annamalai Subramanian and Shinsuke Tanabe 

During the last three decades, Thailand was one of the rapidly developing nations in Southeast Asia. Increasingly diversified industrial sector contributed to the growth of Thailand s economy with a growing number of industrial plants using hazardous chemicals. Between 1970 and 

Under the Stockholm Convention, 12 organochlorine compounds were designated as persistent organic pollutants (POPs) and called for their 

PCBs were first used in small quantities in industrial fluids for hydraulic systems and gas turbines, and as plasticizers. The other main purpose for which they were used in a relatively large quantity was as dielectric fluid for electric capacitors. PCB was totally banned in the year 1975. But, reports by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT), Metropolitan Electricity Authority (MEA), and Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) indicate possession of PCBs containing transformers and capacitors. 

The first official report on the import statistics of these chemicals was made in 1971. After this, the import of POPs chemicals increased year by year. There were increases and decreases year by year until various chemicals were banned in different years. For example DDT was banned for agricultural use in the year 1983 and totally in the year 1994 aldrin in the year 1988 dieldrin in 1986 endrin in 1981 heptachlor in 1988 toxaphene in 1982 HCB in 1980 and PCBs in the year 1975. Only chlordane remained in use until 1996 (www.chem.unep.ch/pops-Inc/). 

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Kan-atireklap S. Subramanain A. Tanabe S. Persistent toxic substances in Thailand. In Persistent Organic Pollutants in Asia. Sources, Distributions Transport and Pate (eds A. Li, S. Tanabe, G. Jiang, J. P. Giesy, P. K. S. Lam). Elsevier Ltd, 2007, pp. 487-513. 

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