The draft will be reviewed at a workshop today with participation of experts and ministers. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) arranged the workshop on the draft of the national implementation plan, which has been prepared following the Stockholm Convention.

"The buy-in of the priority actions of the NIP will be one of the major outcomes of the brainstorming," said a source. The workshop will be held at the IDB Auditorium of Sher-e-Bangla Nagar in the city.

The POPs are a group of toxic chemicals that persist in the environment for a long time and have serious health and environmental effects, which are identified as the source of carcinogenicity, reproductive impairment, adverse impact on developmental and immune system changes, and endocrine disruption.

"The purpose of the two-day workshop is to create sustainable capacity and ownership in Bangladesh to meet their obligations under the Stockholm Convention, including initial preparation of a POPs implementation plan, and broader issues of chemicals safety and management," sources said.

The objective of the Stockholm Convention is to protect global human health and environment from the adverse effect of POPs, identified in the Stockholm Convention held in May 23, 2001.

Bangladesh is a signatory country. Among the twelve POPs, nine are pesticides, two are unintentionally produced chemicals and the Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) commonly used in the electrical equipment.

The aim of the convention is to phase out POPs from the environment through actions as identified in the National Implementation Plan (NIP).

PCBs are another POPs, experts said. PCBs are used as safer cooling and insulating fluid for industrial transformers and capacitors, hydraulic fluids, as surface coatings for carbonless copy paper, as plasticizers in sealants, caulking, synthetic resins, rubbers, paints, waxes, and asphalts, and as flame retardants in lubricating oils.

PCBs bio-accumulate in food chain, the highest levels were found in the fatty tissues of the consumers at the top tropic level. Chronic exposure of PCBs causes Chloracne.

Symptoms, including nausea, eye and respiratory tract irritations, dehydration, weight loss and cyanosis, have been reported, along with altered function of the neuromuscular system, liver, kidneys and pancreas.

Chloracne generally takes the form of dermal lesions and in severe cases, pustules on the face and shoulders. PCBs crossed the placental barrier and hampered the growth and development of embryo. PCB dysfunctions the activities of hormones.

Also, there are reports that the PCBs oil is mixed with cooking oil by a lot of roadside shops after old transformers are abandoned.