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LABORATORY : Centro de Electroquímica y Energía Química (Costa Rica)

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13 Additional Comments/Recommendations

SUBJECT	COMMENT
POPs Analyses in Costa Rica	Costa Rica has not made an objective evaluation of the POPs issue, in spite of having a support of important analytical capacities, such as equipment, enabled personnel and knowledge of the analytical techniques. The country proposal is to establish a national reference laboratory, that has sufficient experience and prestige in Analytical Chemistry and that is in charge of organizing and to coordinating capacities, handling reference materials, orientation of capacity building activities and elaboration of educative materials. In the country, there are academic and state laboratories with the required equipment and personnel, but the exigencies of the health and environmental legislation has not considered necessary establishment of programs for systematic POPs analyses. The high cost of the accreditation and its handling and the absence of a market able to demand these services are others aspects to not promote these analytical programs. It is important to consider the possibility of a project with international financing that develops this proposal, in accordance with accomplishment of international treaties related to POPs signed by the country. The development of the chemical analysis in Costa Rica in the CELEQ, would allow offering control services on these pollutants to all Central America. For that the laboratory has an initial budget as contribution to initiate this project. At the moment, the laboratory has CG with FID and detector of thermal conductivity, which it is easy to adapt experience on taking samples of food and environment. The Center has 4 PhDs, 4 MSc., 3 Bachelors of Chemistry and BSc. The laboratory is in process of accreditation, which will be completed at the end of six months. 8321u03pfd\|1010D1E6ADDITIONALS\|COMMENT 8321u03pfdidval\|115 8321u03pf8\|0010D1E61973\|UNEP_Labs\|ADDITIONALS\|COMMENT\|2EF853F5-6C82-4A6A-8ECC-A1A7DCC4EFCD
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SUBJECT

COMMENT

POPs Analyses in Costa Rica

Costa Rica has not made an objective evaluation of the POPs issue, in spite of having a support of important analytical capacities, such as equipment, enabled personnel and knowledge of the analytical techniques. The country proposal is to establish a national reference laboratory, that has sufficient experience and prestige in Analytical Chemistry and that is in charge of organizing and to coordinating capacities, handling reference materials, orientation of capacity building activities and elaboration of educative materials. In the country, there are academic and state laboratories with the required equipment and personnel, but the exigencies of the health and environmental legislation has not considered necessary establishment of programs for systematic POPs analyses. The high cost of the accreditation and its handling and the absence of a market able to demand these services are others aspects to not promote these analytical programs. It is important to consider the possibility of a project with international financing that develops this proposal, in accordance with accomplishment of international treaties related to POPs signed by the country. The development of the chemical analysis in Costa Rica in the CELEQ, would allow offering control services on these pollutants to all Central America. For that the laboratory has an initial budget as contribution to initiate this project. At the moment, the laboratory has CG with FID and detector of thermal conductivity, which it is easy to adapt experience on taking samples of food and environment. The Center has 4 PhDs, 4 MSc., 3 Bachelors of Chemistry and BSc. The laboratory is in process of accreditation, which will be completed at the end of six months.

1 elements