New Zealand to Prohibit 3 POPs under HSNO Act

New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) is currently consulting on the proposal to include three new persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in Schedule 2A of the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1996 (HSNO Act). These three POPs are:

Dechlorane Plus,
Methoxychlor, and
UV-328.

The decision of adding these three POPs into Annex A of the Stockholm Convention for elimination was made at the 11th Conference of the Parties (COP) to the Convention held in May 2023. As a signatory to this convention, New Zealand has obligations to eliminate or restrict the production and use of POPs. New Zealand fulfils its obligations under this convention through the HSNO Act.

These three POPs are proposed to be listed in Schedule 1AA and 2A of the HSNO Act. Once the proposal is adopted, the import, manufacture, or use of these three POPs and products containing them will be prohibited or restricted. The EPA recently opened the consultation to invite the public to give their comments. Comments are welcome before September 4, 2024.

Under the Stockholm Convention, some exemptions for these three POPs are allowed. Because some of them are widely used in New Zealand, the EPA might list some of these exemptions in Schedule 2A of the HSNO Act. Proposed exemptions are summarized in the table below.

POPs	Proposed exemptions
Dechlorane Plus	Use until 2030 for: aerospace space and defence medical imaging and radiotherapy devices and installations. Use for replacement parts and repair until 2044 for: aerospace, space and defence motor vehicles (covering all land-based vehicles) stationary industrial machines for use in agriculture, forestry and construction marine, garden, forestry and outdoor power equipment instruments for analysis, measurements, control, monitoring, testing, production and inspection medical devices and in-vitro diagnostic devices.
Methoxychlor	No exemptions.
UV-328	Production and use until 2030 for: parts of motor vehicles (covering all land-based vehicles) industrial coating applications for motor vehicles, engineering machines, rail transportation vehicles, and heavy-duty coatings for large steel structures mechanical separators in blood collection tubes triacetyl cellulose (TAC) film in polarizers photographic paper. Production and use for replacement parts and repair until 2044 for: motor vehicles (covering all land-based vehicles) stationary industrial machines for use in agriculture, forestry and construction liquid crystal displays in instruments other than for medical applications liquid crystal displays in medical devices and instruments.