One can find obsolete pesticides mainly in three forms:

1.  Stocks in and around former storages or their remains with relative small amounts varying from several kg’s to tens or hundreds of tonnes (in exceptional cases up to thousand tonnes at individual locations). Distribution at at least tens of thousands of locations. Often this goes along with large amounts of empty packages and containers, contaminated sprayers, contaminated building materials and contaminated soils around the storage sites;

2.  Stocks that are collection points in the former Soviet Union area, the so-called Polygons or burial sites. These are special landfills designed for the controlled storage of outdated pesticides and other hazardous waste. The landfills were commonly fenced and guarded and all amounts have been accurately registered. However with the collapse of the Soviet Union’s central control system, Polygons were abandoned, fences were torn down, and pesticides were illegally excavated, repackaged and sold onto local market or exported by organized crime. Polygons – in the sheer nature of the concept – comprise a limited number of very large sites, often in combination with other hazardous waste.

3.  Waste originating from the production of pesticides; the main component is HCH (hexachlorocyclohexane) waste stemming from production of Lindane. HCH waste is distributed on a limited number of sites, however with large amounts of waste varying from several tens of thousand to sometimes more than hundred(s) thousand tonnes.