A/HRC/18/31 landfill, bottom ash may contaminate foodstuffs and groundwater resources used for drinking water. An analysis of free-range chicken eggs collected near a small-scale medical waste incinerator showed levels of dioxins that were five and half times higher than the European Union dioxin limit for eggs.20 56. When it is not disposed of in the backyard of the health-care establishments that generate it, medical waste is often mixed with ordinary municipal waste and disposed of in municipal landfills or illegal dumpsites. Heavy metals and other toxins can leach into the soil and contaminate groundwater resources used for drinking, farming or domestic purposes by local populations. 57. In countries where no wastewater treatment facilities exist, wastewater from healthcare facilities is directly disposed of in rivers and other water streams. Health-care facility effluents contain a significant amount of pathogens, chemicals and pharmaceuticals excreted by patients that can contaminate surface and groundwater resources used for drinking and domestic purposes. Because they are designed to have a biological effect, pharmaceuticals can also have a significant adverse impact on fish and seafood used for human consumption. IV. Current normative framework 58. In spite of the risks that medical waste may pose to human health and the environment, the international community has not yet elaborated a comprehensive framework to regulate the sound handling, transport and disposal of hazardous waste generated by hospitals and health-care facilities. 59. While not focusing solely on medical waste, a number of international environmental treaties regulate specific aspects of the management and disposal of this particular type of waste; these include the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal and the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. In February 2009, the UNEP Governing Council agreed on the need to develop a global legally binding instrument on mercury.21 The aim of the instrument, which is currently being negotiated, is to reduce risks to human health and the environment from the effects of mercury. 60. Several international organizations, including WHO and IAEA, have elaborated a number of technical guidance and policy documents to ensure that hazardous waste falling within the scope of their mandate is managed and disposed of in a safe and environmentally sound manner. 61. In addition to the above-mentioned evolving body of norms, the Special Rapporteur stresses again that the unsound management and disposal of medical waste may negatively affect the enjoyment of human rights by individuals who either handle this waste or are exposed to it as a consequence of unsound management or disposal. These rights, which have been considered in some detail in the part concerning the human rights impact of medical waste, are set out in the International Bill of Human Rights as well as in other international and regional human rights treaties. 20 International POPs Elimination Network, Contamination of chicken eggs near the Queen Mary’s Hospital, Lucknow medical waste incinerator in Uttar Pradesh (India) by dioxins, PCBs and hexachlorobenzene, 2005. 21 Official Records of the General Assembly, Sixty-fourth Session, Supplement No. 25 (A/64/25), annex I, decision 25/5, part III. 14