We successfully completed the National Biocidal Congress with International Participation, which was held between 19-22 March 2014 in cooperation with the Turkish Public Health Institution, Environmental Health Department and Yıldırım Beyazıt University. Hereby we would like to thank to those who contributed to the congress organization.
We are proud to see that the congress, which was held with the most comprehensive participation in the field of biocidal in our country, with 105 speakers and 1150 participants from Turkey and abroad, attained its aim in terms of production, marketing and application of biocidal products, on behalf of everyone, both public and private sectors.
Major developments were achieved in recent years with the contributions of all stakeholders related to biocidal products, which provided the opportunity for us to be together throughout the congress. As in many issues in the field of health, Turkey in biocidal products; it kept up with the European Union. On the contrary, our country is moving faster and going further in terms of biocidal products compared to the European Union.
Biocidal product basically used for the purpose of protecting human and environment from the negative effects of pests. However, this concept covering 23 different product groups such as disinfectants, insecticides, fly repellants, antifouling paints, due to their chemicals brings pests. In this case, this field needs to be monitored very carefully with scientific support.
Many of the biocidal products contain various substances with harmful properties for humans, animals or the environment that biocidal products exhibit effectiveness thanks to these substances. When viewed from this aspect, biocidal products will continue to take place in our lives in one way or another, these are products that need to be taken care of during the process from their production to their use and disposal. Because of these characteristics, general trend both in the European Union and in our country is towards the use of biocidal products with no harm to people, animals or the environment, or have the least harm.
In addition, inspection of production sites, market surveillance and inspection activities of products, identifying minimum standards for production sites and Compliance studies with the Biocidal Products Regulation No. 528/2012/EU still ongoing.
With the realization of some objectives such as completion of ongoing assessment studies in the European Union, fixing manufacturing standards of biocidal product in Turkey, increasing market surveillance and inspection, developing investigation and assessment procedures and creating data in electronic environment and their storage and dispatch Turkey will continue to be the leading country in the region in terms of biocidal products in the future.
Since the Biocidal Products Regulation entered into force, biocidal product licenses have been issued for approximately 1400 products, the use of approximately 1100 products was also permitted by applying transitional measures. Currently, approximately 2500 biocidal products are available and used in the Turkish market. The list of permitted products in Turkey is available to public access on the website of the Department of Environmental Health.
In this context, in order to share the studies on biocidal products with a wider audience and to put them on a scientific basis and with the support of national and international participants in this congress, we had the opportunity to comprehend the experiences of other countries and to discuss the practices of our country.
Speakers from authorized institutions of the European Union such as the European Chemicals Agency, Germany Federal Institute of Occupational Health and Safety, Italy National Health Institute, International Soap, Detergent and Care Products Association and we listened to speakers from the Turkish Public Health Institution being the only exclusive institution in our country on biocidal products, and academics from various universities, representatives from non-governmental organizations, and various domestic and foreign biocidal product manufacturers. Congress was supported by many public institutions and representatives of private sector mainly Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Livestock, Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency. During the congress, 19 sessions, 6 conferences and 2 workshops were held in two parallel halls.
During the congress, 200 people were given "Responsible Manager Training in Biocidal Product Applications" and 400 people were given "Biocidal Product Market Surveillance and Inspection Training".
We discussed legislation applied in our country on biocidal products, how this legislation can be taken forward, what sort of steps should be taken for the future and what measures should be taken in order to protect the environment and public health during the congress.
As a result of these discussions mainly the following were decided:
1- Meticulous assessment of all stages from the production of biocidal products to their use and disposal, their effects on human and animal health and identifying environmental risk factors and minimizing these risks with a strict inspection.
2- Eliminating the problems related to biocidal product production sites and increasing the biocidal product production quality with the legislation to be established and supporting the studies carried out by the Turkish Public Health Institution for the sale of higher quality and safer biocidal products in the Turkish market,
3- Challenges faced by public institutions, such as municipalities and hospitals, purchasing large amounts of biocidal products and the issues that need attention are resolved by the relevant institutions,
4- Informing agricultural workers and health personnel about the possible effects of pesticides on health and their safe use,
5- It is thought that the use of boron, a valuable mineral for our country, in biocidal products should be supported.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone contributed to organization of the National Biocidal Congress with International Participation, especially Yıldırım Beyazıt University and the Public Health Institution of Turkey, the members of the Scientific Committee and all the participants. NATIONAL BIOCIDAL CONGRESS WITH INTERNATIONAL PARTICIPATION CONGRESS ORGANIZATION COUNCIL