Basel Convention Coordinating Centre and Stockholm Convention Regional Centre in Uruguay (BCCC-SCRC Uruguay)

In 1997 Parties to the Basel Convention selected Uruguay to host a Basel Convention Regional Centre. The Uruguayan Technological Laboratory (LATU) in Montevideo - with the management support of the Ministry of Housing, Land Planning and Environment - has hosted the Centre physically in its premise since then. The same Centre was then nominated in 2007 to serve as a regional centre under the Stockholm Convention and was endorsed by the Parties as a regional centre under the Convention in 2009, initially for four years and then recently re-endorsed for another term of four years.

The Centre has been involved in various trainings and technology transfer activities since its establishment. Life cycle approach in the management of chemicals and wastes is central to the Centre’s plans, projects, and activities and it thus provides opportunities in promoting synergy among the chemicals-related Conventions. The centre has a long experience in organizing regional and international meetings related to the Basel, Stockholm and Rotterdam Conventions. Apart from its training and capacity building activities, the centre has also been involved in developing technical guidelines on hazardous waste management.

Through LATU, a public private initiative established in 1965, the centre can offer to its clients, and the beneficiaries the services in following areas:

  • Quality management, ISO certification etc.
  • Laboratory services on POPs analysis in various matrices
  • Environmental monitoring
  • Ecotoxicology
  • Biotechnology
  • Enterprise development and management and Environment Management System consultancy

Some of its flagship projects include:

  • Minimization and environmentally sound management of mercury containing waste, affecting most exposed populations in various economic sectors, including the health sector, in countries of Latin America and the Caribbean supported by USEPA.
  • Global Monitoring Programme Phase I executed in collaboration with UNEP Chemicals. The objectives were to build regional capacity on data analysis for POPs in air and breast milk among others.
  • Implementation of the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS) and sound chemical hazard communication for government, business and industry, and public interest and labour organisations.
  • Diagnosis of Legal and Institutional infrastructures for sound management of chemicals.
  • Environmentally sound storage and disposal of surplus mercury in two countries of LAC, Argentina and Uruguay.
  • Capacity Building on Hazardous Waste and Promotion of Best Available Technologies and Best Environmental Practices (BATs and BEPs), training in Hazardous Waste.

Parties served: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Panama, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of).

For more information visit: https://www.ccbasilea-crestocolmo.org.uy/en