By hosting the 4th Minamata Convention Meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-4), Indonesia expects to contribute to handling and eliminating the use of mercury in the country, an official has said.

“Indonesia’s contribution strengthens the reduction and elimination of mercury, that is for sure,” director general of waste, toxic, and hazardous materials management (PSLB3) at the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK), Rosa Vivien Ratnawati, said at a press conference here on Tuesday.

As the host, Indonesia can demonstrate its seriousness in tackling mercury use to the global community, she affirmed.

By hosting the COP-4 Minamata Convention, which will be conducted online in November 2021 and face-to-face in 2022, Indonesia will be able to attract world recognition and secure its leadership role in global environmental diplomacy, Ratnawati said.

In addition, Indonesia will also push for a global declaration to eradicate illegal mercury trade in an on-site meeting, which is planned to be held in Bali in March 2022, she informed.

Meanwhile, expert staff for the Foreign Affairs Ministry, Muhsin Syihab, who is also the head of the Indonesian Delegation to COP-4, informed that the declaration is expected to strengthen international cooperation on fighting illegal mercury trade that can harm both humans and the environment.

“With international cooperation, we hope to suppress mercury illegal trade, as well as to support the goal of the Minamata Convention itself: eradicating the use of mercury,” Syihab remarked.

Indonesia has managed to reduce mercury use in the manufacturing sector, he said. In the battery industry specifically, mercury use was successfully reduced by 190.98 kg in 2019 and 219.26 kg in 2020, he informed.

In the lamp industry, the use of mercury was reduced by 135.70 kg in 2019 and 155.12 kg the following year, he said.

In 2019, the health industry withdrew 118,730 units of medical devices that used mercury such as dental amalgam, thermometers, and sphygmomanometers, he added.

In 2020, 72,292 units of medical devices containing 4,731.6 kg of mercury were also discarded, he disclosed.

The use of mercury was lowered by 10,450 kg in 2019 and 2020 in the small-scale gold mining sector (PESK), and by 560 kg in 2019 and 710 kg in 2020 in the energy sector, he said.

Source: Antara News