When Soil Becomes Contaminated With __________, Children Can Begin to Show Health Issues.
This folio was created:
- to heighten sensation about the wellness and environmental impacts of persistent organic pollutants (POPs),
- to bear witness what actions the United States and some other countries have already taken to address these pollutants, and
- to describe the actions gear up into motion by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants to address this issue globally.
The folio explains the importance of the Stockholm Convention, a legally bounden international agreement finalized in 2001. In the Stockholm Convention, participating governments agreed to take actions to reduce or eliminate the production, use, and/or release of sure of these pollutants.
This content was created in 2002 and updated in Dec 2009.
Contents
- What Are POPs?
- What Domestic Actions Have Been Taken to Command POPs?
- How Exercise POPs Bear on People and Wild fauna?
- The Great Lakes: A Story of Trials and Triumphs
- Alaska: POPs in America's Chill
- The Stockholm Convention
- Table: The "Dirty Dozen"
- What Has the United States Washed to Accost POPs Globally?
- Resource
A Global Issue
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are toxic chemicals that adversely affect human wellness and the environment around the world. Considering they can exist transported by wind and water, most POPs generated in one country can and practice affect people and wildlife far from where they are used and released. They persist for long periods of time in the environment and can accrue and laissez passer from ane species to the side by side through the food chain. To address this global concern, the United States joined forces with 90 other countries and the European Community to sign a groundbreaking United Nations treaty in Stockholm, Sweden, in May 2001. Under the treaty, known as the Stockholm Convention, countries agreed to reduce or eliminate the production, use, and/or release of 12 key POPs (see box), and specified under the Convention a scientific review process that has led to the addition of other POPs chemicals of global concern.
Many of the POPs included in the Stockholm Convention are no longer produced in this country. However, U.S. citizens and habitats can still be at risk from POPs that have persisted in the environment from unintentionally produced POPs that are released in the U.s.a., from POPs that are released elsewhere and then transported here (by wind or water, for instance), or from both. Although most adult nations have taken strong activeness to control POPs, a great number of developing nations have only fairly recently begun to restrict their production, apply, and release.
The Stockholm Convention adds an of import global dimension to our national and regional efforts to control POPs. Though the Usa is not yet a Political party to the Stockholm Convention, the Convention has played a prominent role in the control of harmful chemicals on both a national and global level. For example, EPA and u.s.a. have significantly reduced the release of dioxins and furans to country, air, and h2o from U.S. sources. In addition to assessing dioxins, EPA has besides been working diligently on the reduction of DDT from global sources. The United States and Canada signed an understanding for the Virtual Elimination of Persistent Toxic Substances in the Swell Lakes to reduce emissions from toxic substances. The United States has as well signed the regional protocol of the United Nations Economic Committee for Europe on POPs under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution which addresses the Stockholm Convention POPs and other chemicals.
In addition to the POPs-related agreements the United States has taken part in signing, the United states of america has also provided ample financial and technical support to countries beyond the globe supporting POPs reduction. A few of these initiatives include dioxin and furan release inventories in Asia and Russia, and the reduction of PCB sources in Russia.
What Are POPs?
Many POPs were widely used during the boom in industrial product after World War II, when thousands of synthetic chemicals were introduced into commercial utilise. Many of these chemicals proved beneficial in pest and illness control, ingather production, and industry. These aforementioned chemicals, however, accept had unforeseen furnishings on man health and the environment.
Many people are familiar with some of the most well-known POPs, such equally PCBs, Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, and dioxins. POPs include a range of substances that include:
- Intentionally produced chemicals currently or once used in agronomics, illness command, manufacturing, or industrial processes. Examples include PCBs, which have been useful in a variety of industrial applications (e.g., in electric transformers and large capacitors, as hydraulic and heat exchange fluids, and every bit additives to paints and lubricants) and Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, which is still used to control mosquitoes that carry malaria in some parts of the world.
- Unintentionally produced chemicals, such as dioxins, that result from some industrial processes and from combustion (for example, municipal and medical waste incineration and backyard called-for of trash).
The DDT Dilemma
DDT is probable ane of the virtually famous and controversial pesticides ever made. An estimated four billion pounds of this cheap and historically effective chemical have been produced and applied worldwide since 1940. In the United States, DDT was used extensively on agronomical crops, particularly cotton fiber, from 1945 to 1972. DDT was too used to protect soldiers from insect-borne diseases such as malaria and typhus during Earth War Ii, and information technology remains a valuable public health tool in parts of the tropics. The heavy apply of this highly persistent chemical, notwithstanding, led to widespread ecology contamination and the aggregating of DDT in humans and wild animals - a phenomenon brought to public attention by Rachel Carson in her 1962 book, Silent Spring. A wealth of scientific laboratory and field data accept now confirmed research from the 1960s that suggested, amid other furnishings, that high levels of DDE (a metabolite of DDT) in certain birds of casualty caused their eggshells to thin so dramatically they could non produce live offspring.
One bird species particularly sensitive to DDE was the bald eagle. Public business organisation about the eagles' turn down and the possibility of other long-term harmful furnishings of Ddt exposure to both humans and wild animals prompted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to abolish the registration of Ddt in 1972. The baldheaded eagle has since experienced one of the most dramatic species recoveries in our history.
Transboundary Travelers
Global Grit: This figure shows a satellite image of the passage of a cloud of dust across the Pacific Sea to Due north America. This dust cloud was raised by a tempest in Asia in April 2001. Also shown is a dust cloud from northern Africa traveling due west over the Atlantic Ocean.
A major impetus for the Stockholm Convention was the finding of POPs contamination in relatively pristine Arctic regions - thousands of miles from any known source. Much of the bear witness for long-range transport of airborne gaseous and particulate substances to the United States focuses on dust or smoke because they are visible in satellite images. Tracing the motion of most POPs in the surround is circuitous because these compounds tin can exist in different phases (e.g., as a gas or attached to airborne particles) and can be exchanged amidst ecology media. For example, some POPs tin be carried for many miles when they evaporate from water or land surfaces into the air, or when they adsorb to airborne particles. Then, they can return to Earth on particles or in snow, pelting, or mist. POPs also travel through oceans, rivers, lakes, and, to a lesser extent, with the help of animal carriers, such as migratory species.
What Domestic Actions Have Been Taken to Control POPs?
The United States has taken stiff domestic activity to reduce emissions of POPs. For example, none of the original POPs pesticides listed in the Stockholm Convention is registered for sale and distribution in the U.s. today and in 1978, Congress prohibited the industry of PCBs and severely restricted the use of remaining PCB stocks. In addition, since 1987, EPA and the states have finer reduced environmental releases of dioxins and furans to land, air, and h2o from U.S. sources. These regulatory actions, forth with voluntary efforts past U.South. manufacture, resulted in a greater than 85 per centum decline in total dioxin and furan releases afterward 1987 from known industrial sources. To amend empathize the risks associated with dioxin releases, EPA has been conducting a comprehensive reassessment of dioxin science and volition exist evaluating additional deportment that might farther protect human health and the environment.
Stopping Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane Use
Over the years, the The states has taken a number of steps to restrict the use of DDT:
1969: Later on studying the persistence of Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane residues in the environment, the U.S. Department of Agronomics (USDA)cancels the registration of certain uses of DDT (on shade copse, on tobacco, in the home, and in aquatic environments).
1970: USDA cancels Ddt applications on crops, commercial plants, and forest products, as well as for edifice purposes.
1972: Under the authority of EPA, the registrations of the remaining Ddt products are canceled.
1989: The remaining exempted uses (public health use for decision-making vector-borne diseases, armed services apply for quarantine, and prescription drug apply for controlling trunk lice) are voluntarily stopped.
Today: There is no U.S. registration for DDT, meaning that it cannot legally be sold or distributed in the The states.
Controlling Dioxins
EPA has pursued regulatory command and direction of dioxins and furans releases to air, water, and soil. The Clean Air Deed requires the application of maximum doable command engineering science for hazardous air pollutants, including dioxins and furans. Major sources regulated under this potency include municipal, medical, and hazardous waste product incineration; pulp and paper manufacturing; and certain metals production and refining processes. Dioxin releases to water are managed through a combination of risk-based and applied science-based tools established under the Clean Water Human action. The cleanup of dioxin-contaminated state is an important part of the EPA Superfund and Resource Conservation and Recovery Deed Corrective Action programs. Voluntary actions to control dioxins and furans include EPA'south Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxics Program and the Dioxin Exposure Initiative, both of which get together data to inform futurity actions and further reduce risks associated with dioxin exposure.
How Exercise POPs Affect People and Wildlife?
Studies accept linked POPs exposures to declines, diseases, or abnormalities in a number of wildlife species, including sure kinds of fish, birds, and mammals. Wild animals also can act as sentinels for human health: abnormalities or declines detected in wildlife populations tin audio an early warning bell for people. Behavioral abnormalities and nascence defects in fish, birds, and mammals in and around the Great Lakes, for case, led scientists to investigate POPs exposures in homo populations (run into beneath for more information on the Great Lakes).
In people, reproductive, developmental, behavioral, neurologic, endocrine, and immunologic adverse health effects have been linked to POPs. People are mainly exposed to POPs through contaminated foods. Less common exposure routes include drinking contaminated water and direct contact with the chemicals. In people and other mammals alike, POPs can be transferred through the placenta and chest milk to developing offspring. Information technology should be noted, however, that despite this potential exposure, the known benefits of breast-feeding far outweigh the suspected risks.
A number of populations are at item adventure of POPs exposure, including people whose diets include large amounts of fish, shellfish, or wild foods that are high in fat and locally obtained. For case, indigenous peoples may be particularly at take a chance considering they observe cultural and spiritual traditions related to their diet. To them, line-fishing and hunting are non sport or recreation, merely are part of a traditional, subsistence way of life, in which no useful function of the grab is wasted. In remote areas of Alaska and elsewhere, locally obtained subsistence food may exist the only readily bachelor option for nutrition (meet beneath for more information on the Arctic).
In add-on, sensitive populations, such as children, the elderly, and those with suppressed immune systems, are typically more susceptible to many kinds of pollutants, including POPs. Considering POPs take been linked to reproductive impairments, men and women of changeable age may too be at take chances.
POPS and the Food Chain
POPs piece of work their way through the nutrient chain by accumulating in the body fat of living organisms and condign more concentrated as they move from 1 creature to another. This process is known every bit "biomagnification." When contaminants institute in small amounts at the bottom of the food concatenation biomagnify, they can pose a significant hazard to predators that feed at the top of the food chain. This means that even small releases of POPs can have significant impacts.
Biomagnification in Activeness: A 1997 report by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme, called Arctic Pollution Issues: A State of the Arctic Environment Report, found that caribou in Canada's Northwest Territories had as much as x times the levels of PCBs every bit the lichen on which they grazed; PCB levels in the wolves that fed on the caribou were magnified nearly 60 times as much every bit the lichen.
The Role of Scientific discipline
Although scientists have more than to learn about POPs chemicals, decades of scientific research have greatly increased our knowledge of POPs' impacts on people and wildlife. For example, laboratory studies have shown that low doses of sure POPs adversely affect some organ systems and aspects of evolution. Studies also have shown that chronic exposure to low doses of certain POPs tin result in reproductive and immune system deficits. Exposure to high levels of certain POPs chemicals - higher than unremarkably encountered by humans and wildlife - can cause serious damage or expiry. Epidemiological studies of exposed human populations and studies of wildlife might provide more information on health impacts. Notwithstanding, because such studies are less controlled than laboratory studies, other stresses cannot be ruled out as the cause of adverse effects.
As we continue to written report POPs, we volition larn more than nearly the risk of POPs exposure to the general public, how much sure species (including people) are exposed, and what effects POPs have on these species and their ecosystems. EPA developed a report summarizing the science on POPs (see Resources below).
Reservoirs of POPs
POPs can be deposited in marine and freshwater ecosystems through effluent releases, atmospheric deposition, runoff, and other means. Because POPs have low water solubility, they bond strongly to particulate matter in aquatic sediments. As a outcome, sediments can serve equally reservoirs or "sinks" for POPs. When sequestered in these sediments, POPs can be taken out of circulation for long periods of time. If disturbed, however, they can be reintroduced into the ecosystem and food chain, potentially becoming a source of local, and even global, contamination.
The Great Lakes: A Story of Trials and Triumphs
The Great Lakes - Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario - and their connecting channels make up the largest system of fresh surface water in the earth. A vital resource for the United States and Canada, the Not bad Lakes are used for fishing, swimming, boating, agronomics, industry, and tourism; they are also a source of drinking water and energy.
Despite their size, however, the Slap-up Lakes are vulnerable to pollution. Until the 1970s, a variety of POPs, heavy metals, and other agronomical and industrial pollutants were routinely discharged into the Swell Lakes. Toxic substances also entered the Great Lakes Basin through other avenues, including waste sites, river runoff, and atmospheric deposition. These pollutants existed in large plenty quantities to warrant concern regarding the effects on human health and wildlife, including several species of fish and shellfish, bald eagles and other birds of prey, and fish-eating mammals such every bit mink.
Extensive cleanup and pollution control efforts were later on launched, and many contaminant levels have declined dramatically in the Great Lakes as a result, illustrating the positive outcomes that can exist achieved when communities, authorities, and manufacture work together to reduce pollution. Still, some POPs exist at pregnant concentrations, indicating their persistence and the possibility of continued contagion from other sources, particularly long-range atmospheric transport of POPs from other areas.
In 1972, the United States and Canada signed the first Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, calling for the two countries to clean upwardly and control pollution of these waters. In 1978, they signed a new agreement, which added a commitment to piece of work together to rid the Dandy Lakes of persistent toxic chemicals, some of which are POPs. Equally role of this agreement, both countries have been monitoring atmospheric loadings of these chemicals to the Great Lakes since 1990.
The Slap-up Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy, signed by the Usa and Canada in 1997, was an agreement aimed to reduce several persistent toxic pollutants, including sure POPs, in the Great Lakes Basin over a 10-yr period. The strategy provided a guide for governments and stakeholders toward the virtual elimination of 12 identified substances through cost-efficient and expedient pollution prevention and other incentive-based actions. Over the course of the x-year menses, working closely with state, provincial, tribal, and local governments and stakeholders from industry, academia, ecology and customs groups, both governments made significant progress in meeting that goal of virtually eliminating persistent toxic substances such every bit mercury, PCBs, and dioxin from discharging into the Bang-up Lakes environment. The two governments agreed to continue to extend the understanding in order to work together to identify new challenges that are presented by emerging substance of concern, such as flame retardants.
Great Lakes Research
Through these efforts, we volition steadily keep to reduce levels of toxics in fish. Someday we will answer the question . . . that, yes, Groovy Lakes fish are prophylactic to swallow by anyone, anywhere.
Today, much of our noesis of POPs, populations at risk, and possible wellness effects comes from enquiry conducted in the Bully Lakes region. We have learned, for example, that a major route of exposure is through contaminated food, particularly fish. Studies conducted in the 1970s showed a correlation between fish consumption and elevated POPs levels in blood, leading researchers to conclude that people tin be exposed to POPs by eating contaminated fish.
As a effect, extensive fish contaminant monitoring programs have been established in the Great Lakes states, and fish consumption advisories are regularly released to assist inform people which fish are safe to eat and how much is safe to eat (see Resources below).
Nosotros take also learned that currently some POPs primarily enter the Cracking Lakes from the air and that urban areas are major sources of airborne POPs.
Alaska: POPs in America'southward Chill
For many Americans, Alaska (much of which is in the Arctic) conjures images of commanding tundra, glaciers, and pure littoral waters - a remote and wild land relatively untouched past the human hand. Simply fifty-fifty here, POPs accept been found in the air, h2o, soil, plants, fish, and other wildlife.
Some POPs have been used or released in Alaska and other northern regions past military sites, smelters, lurid and paper mills, power stations, mines, and other sources. Others take rarely or never been used locally.
POPs tin can enter Alaska and the Arctic in several ways, too. The start indication that Chill pollution could originate elsewhere came during the 1950s, when pilots noticed a haze in the North American Chill that was eventually traced to sources in the lower latitudes. Since so, scientists have discovered that POPs can reach Chill regions via air, water, and, to a lesser extent, migratory species.
Due to global wind patterns, Alaska can receive POPs from both eastern asia and northern Europe. POPs can also travel in rivers from southeast and key Asia into the Pacific Ocean, where h2o currents flow into the Arctic Sea.
Alaska'southward expansive tundra and shut proximity to the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean make it a dwelling house for a wide diversity of wild animals, some of which are at detail risk from POPs. During the long, common cold Alaskan winters, mammals metabolize fat, and this process releases POPs that have accumulated in the fat directly into their bodies. Then, in the spring, a disquisitional period of reproduction for Alaskan wildlife, POPs that have accumulated in the ice and snow tin can exist released into the environment and the food chain.
The Alaskan and Arctic ecosystems are frail and take a long time to recover from harm. In addition, slow-growing plants (and the animals that feed on these plants) tin be exposed to bioaccumulating contaminants such equally POPs for a long fourth dimension before being consumed at the next level in the food chain. For instance, POPs accumulation in and on lichen in Alaska may contribute to levels of contaminants found in caribou tissue. The caribou, in turn, can and so be exposed to these contaminants for a long fourth dimension earlier beingness consumed by predators themselves.
Living Shut to the Land
The traditional Alaskan Native's manner of life is rooted in a close relationship with the state. For many Native cultures, subsistence activities (such as hunting seals, whales, and birds; angling; and gathering bird eggs) are the master methods of procuring food. Alaskan Natives therefore consume much more fish than the average American and more often consume animals higher on the food chain, including predator species such every bit seals, sea lions, bears, and toothed whales, all of which have potentially higher levels of POPs.
Cooperation in the Arctic
In 1991, nations with territory in the Chill developed the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy to protect, enhance, and restore the Arctic ecosystems. In 1996, those aforementioned nations established the Chill Council, a high-level intergovernmental forum, to address environmental protection and sustainable development in the Chill. The member nations of the Council are Canada, Kingdom of denmark, Republic of finland, Kingdom of norway, Russia, Iceland, Sweden, and the United States. The Arctic Council Action Program has launched a number of projects to reduce the apply and release of POPs within the Arctic nations. The Arctic Council's Chill Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) provides member nations with information on threats to the Arctic surroundings and scientific advice on remedial and preventive actions to protect the environs from contaminants such as POPs.
The Stockholm Convention
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants, which was adopted in 2001 and entered into force in 2004, is a global treaty whose purpose is to safeguard homo wellness and the surround from highly harmful chemicals that persist in the surroundings and bear upon the well-beingness of humans as well as wildlife. The Convention requires parties to eliminate and/or reduce POPs, which have a potential of causing devastating effects such as cancer and diminished intelligence and accept the ability to travel over corking distances.
The Stockholm Convention is managed by the United Nations Surround Programme and its Secretariat is based in Geneva, Switzerland. UNEP is the leading international environmental entity that supports the agenda and implementation of ecology sustainability for the Un. The COP, or the Conference of the Parties of the Stockholm Convention, governs the POPs Convention, with its members being the Convention's Parties.
The role of Parties is to implement the obligations of the Convention, including eliminating or restricting the product and apply of the intentionally produced POPs, prohibiting and eliminating production and use or import of POPs, conducting research, identifying areas contaminated with POPs, and providing financial back up and incentives for the Convention. The process of condign a Party begins with a country or regional economic integration organization submitting a means of ratification, credence, blessing or accession to the depositary. Official contact points and national focal points are nominated to carry out authoritative, communications, and information exchange procedures.
While the Convention initially focused on 12 intentionally and unintentionally produced chemicals (meet list above), the Convention began calculation additional substances to the agreement in May of 2009 and volition continue to do and then. For the most updated list of substances covered by the Convention, delight visit www.pops.int.
Intentionally Produced POPs
In the U.s.a., the treaty is of particular importance for the people and environment of Alaska, which are impacted by POPs transported by air and water from exterior the state. This is specially true for Alaskan Natives, who rely heavily on traditional diets consisting of fish and wildlife.
The Convention requires Parties to eliminate or restrict the product and utilize of the intentionally produced POPs, subject to specified exemptions, with special provisions for Ddt and PCBs.
Ddt is placed in the restriction annex, which means that its production and use is restricted to disease-vector command. The Convention too establishes a public Ddt registry of users and producers, and it encourages the development of safe, effective, affordable, and environmentally friendly alternatives.
For PCBs, the Convention prohibits new PCB product and envisages phasing out electric equipment that contains high concentrations of PCBs by 2025.
Trade
The Convention prohibits trade in POPs chemicals for which Parties have eliminated product and use. Such POPs may exist exported but for environmentally sound disposal. For those POPs that one or more than Parties go on to produce or use pursuant to specific exemptions, the Convention allows consign of such POPs just to those Parties that have an immune use exemption nether the Convention and those not-Parties that provide certification that they will minimize or forestall environmental releases and destroy or dispose of the POPs in an environmentally sound way.
Exemptions/Exceptions for Intentionally Produced POPs
The Convention generally exempts from the previously described requirements those quantities of intentionally produced POPs that:
- Are used for laboratory-scale research or as a reference standard.
- Occur as unintentional trace contaminants in products and articles.
- Are used in closed-system, site-limited processes.
- Exist in articles manufactured or already in use on the engagement that the Convention enters into force for that Political party.
The Convention likewise allows Parties to register for specific exemptions on a country-by-country footing. These exemptions are subject to review and elapse after 5 years, unless extended by the Conference of Parties (COP).
Unintentionally Produced POPs
The Convention calls upon Parties to take certain specified measures to reduce releases of unintentionally produced POPs with the goal of their standing minimization and, where feasible, ultimate elimination. It specifically requires Parties to:
- Develop national action plans to address the release of these POPs.
- Promote the development of preventative measures.
- Employ best available techniques (BAT) for sure new pollution sources (due east.g., municipal, infirmary, and hazardous waste matter incinerators) within 4 years after the Convention enters into force. Parties must also promote BAT and all-time environmental practices for other new and existing sources.
POPs Wastes
Amidst other things, the Convention requires Parties to develop appropriate strategies for identifying:
- Stockpiles consisting of or containing intentionally produced POPs chemicals.
- Products and articles in apply and wastes consisting of, containing, or contaminated with any POPs chemic.
- Sites contaminated with POPs.
It also requires Parties to take advisable measures and then that POPs wastes are managed in an environmentally sound mode. This includes both destruction and disposal techniques. Although remediation of contaminated sites is non required, any such remediation must be performed in an environmentally sound mode.
Financial and Technical Help
The Convention creates a flexible organization of technical and financial aid to assist developing countries and countries with economies in transition to meet their obligations. Although the Convention does not create a new fund or institute specific assessments, adult countries are to collectively provide new and additional financial resources. These funds will enable developing land Parties to meet the agreed full incremental costs of implementing measures to fulfill their obligations under the Convention. On an acting ground, the Convention designates the Global Environment Facility (GEF) as the principal, but non exclusive, component of the financial mechanism. The Gef is a financial machinery established to address global ecology threats.
The Convention also specifies that developed countries provide technical assistance and capacity building to help developing countries and countries with economies in transition meet their obligations.
Process for Calculation New Chemicals
New chemicals tin be added to the treaty based on a scientific review procedure that involves Parties and interested observers. The basic steps of the procedure are as follows:
- When a Political party nominates a chemical, the proposal is sent to a scientific review committee comprised of government- designated experts, who apply the Convention's screening criteria (for persistence, bioaccumulation, toxicity, and long-range ship).
- If the chemical meets the screening criteria, the commission prepares a risk profile for the chemic.
- If, on the basis of the take a chance profile, the committee finds that the "chemic is likely, as a issue of its long-range environmental send to lead to meaning adverse homo health and/or ecology effects such that global activeness is warranted," the committee prepares a run a risk management evaluation that considers socio-economical factors.
- Based on the risk contour and the risk management evaluation, the review committee makes a recommendation to the COP whether the chemical should exist listed or not listed under the Convention.
- The COP makes the final decision -by iii-fourths bulk - as to whether the chemical will exist listed nether the Convention.
The decision of the COP to add together a chemical to the treaty is binding on all Parties one year later, except for (a) Parties that "opt out" of this conclusion within the 1-twelvemonth period, or (b) Parties that choose to invoke a separate "opt in" procedure under which they are non bound until they affirmatively accept a new obligation. The COP began adding new chemicals to the understanding in May of 2009.
Monitoring Procedure
The Convention provides for an effectiveness evaluation, based on a POPs monitoring and data collection try that volition employ existing monitoring programs and mechanisms to the extent possible.
The "Dirty Dozen"
| POP | Global Historical Use/Source | Overview of U.S. Status |
|---|---|---|
| aldrin and dieldrin | Insecticides used on crops such equally corn and cotton wool; also used for termite control. | Under FIFRA:
|
| chlordane | Insecticide used on crops, including vegetables, small grains, potatoes, sugarcane, sugar beets, fruits, nuts, citrus, and cotton. Used on habitation lawn and garden pests. Likewise used extensively to control termites. | Under FIFRA:
No production (stopped in 1997), import, or consign. Regulated every bit a hazardous air pollutant (CAA). |
| Ddt | Insecticide used on agricultural crops, primarily cotton, and insects that carry diseases such as malaria and typhus. | Under FIFRA: No U.Southward. registrations; near uses canceled in
No U.S. product, import, or export. DDE (a metabolite of Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) regulated as a chancy air pollutant (CAA). Priority toxic pollutant (CWA). |
| endrin | Insecticide used on crops such equally cotton fiber and grains; too used to control rodents. | Under FIFRA, no U.Due south. registrations; most uses canceled in 1979; all uses by 1984. No product, import, or export. Priority toxic pollutant (CWA). |
| mirex | Insecticide used to gainsay fire ants, termites, and mealybugs. Also used equally a fire retardant in plastics, safe, and electrical products. | Nether FIFRA, no U.S. registrations; all uses canceled in 1977. No production, import, or export. |
| heptachlor | Insecticide used primarily confronting soil insects and termites. Likewise used against some crop pests and to combat malaria. | Nether FIFRA:
in 1989. No production, import, or export. |
| hexachlorobenzene | Fungicide used for seed treatment. Besides an industrial chemical used to make fireworks, armament, synthetic safety, and other substances. Too unintentionally produced during combustion and the manufacture of certain chemicals. Also an impurity in sure pesticides. | Nether FIFRA, no U.S. registrations; all uses canceled by 1985. No product, import, or export every bit a pesticide. Manufacture and apply for chemical intermediate (equally allowed nether the Convention). Regulated as a hazardous air pollutant (CAA). Priority toxic pollutant (CWA). |
| PCBs | Used for a variety of industrial processes and purposes, including in electrical transformers and capacitors, as heat exchange fluids, as paint additives, in carbonless copy paper, and in plastics. Also unintentionally produced during combustion. | Manufacture and new employ prohibited in 1978 (TSCA). Regulated as a hazardous air pollutant (CAA). Priority toxic pollutant (CWA). |
| toxaphene | Insecticide used to command pests on crops and livestock, and to kill unwanted fish in lakes. | Under FIFRA:
No product, import, or export. Regulated every bit a hazardous air pollutant (CAA). |
| dioxins and furans | Unintentionally produced during about forms of combustion, including burning of municipal and medical wastes, lawn burning of trash, and industrial processes. Likewise can be plant equally trace contaminants in sure herbicides, forest preservatives, and in PCB mixtures. | Regulated every bit hazardous air pollutants (CAA). Dioxin in the grade of ii,3,7,eight-TCDD is a priority toxic pollutant (CWA). |
Acronyms:
FIFRA: Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act
TSCA: Toxic Substances Control Deed
CAA: Clean Air Deed
CWA: Clean Water Act
What Has the United States Done to Address POPs Globally?
The United States has taken a leading role to reduce and/or eliminate POPs and their releases on a regional and global basis. Below are some highlights of our efforts.
- Canada and the United States signed an agreement for the Virtual Elimination of Persistent Toxic Substances in the Great Lakes. The strategy sets long-term goals to promote emissions reductions of toxic substances.
- The United states of america, Canada, and United mexican states established the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) nether the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) (PDF)(40 pp, 75 K, Almost PDF), which in turn adult a regional initiative on the sound management of chemicals. Under this initiative, the CEC has developed Regional Action Plans, which identify activities that reduce or eliminate risks from chemicals of concern. The CEC, for case, established such plans for PCBs, DDT, and chlordane.
- The United States signed the legally binding regional protocol with other fellow member nations (including European countries, Canada, and Russia) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on POPs under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) . This agreement seeks to eliminate production and reduce emissions of POPs in the UNECE region. The original agreement addressed the 12 Stockholm Convention POPs and 4 additional chemicals (hexachlorocyclohexanes, hexabromobiphenyl, chlordecone, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), but, like the Stockholm Convention, included a machinery for adding boosted substances to the agreement. Elements from the LRTAP POPs Protocol were used in negotiations for the Stockholm Convention. The United States has non nevertheless ratified the Protocol.
- Other international work has addressed merchandise in hazardous substances, some of which are POPs. The United States, along with 71 other countries and the European Community, have signed the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (Moving picture) Process for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade , building on a x-twelvemonth-old voluntary program. The Picture Convention identifies pesticides and industrial chemicals of concern, facilitates information sharing about their risks, and provides countries with an opportunity to make informed decisions most whether they should exist imported. Some of the POP substances are already on the PIC list.
- The U.s. has also provided technical and financial help for POPs-related activities to a variety of countries and regions, including Mexico, Key and Due south America, Russia, Asia, and Africa. Examples of this assistance include development of dioxin and furan release inventories in Russia and Asia, the Chemicals Information Exchange and Networking Project for chemicals managers in targeted countries in Africa and Cardinal America, the devastation of pesticide stockpiles in Africa and Russia, and the reduction of PCB sources in Russia, which reduced emissions of PCBs and enabled Russia to meet the requirements of both the Stockholm Convention and the LRTAP POPs Protocol.
- The Us is also an observer to the Basel Convention , which was designed to reduce cross-border movements of chancy waste. The Convention focuses on improving controls on the motion of waste, including some POPs waste product, preventing illegal traffic, and ensuring that waste matter is disposed of equally shut as possible to its source.
Resources
The following resources, many of which are referenced in this folio, provide more information on POPs, the Stockholm Convention, and the U.S. role in POPs reduction and elimination.
Programs of the U.Southward. Ecology Protection Bureau
Search www.epa.gov under the post-obit key words (in bold):
Air: Office of Air and Radiation - Develops national programs, technical policies, and regulations for controlling air pollution and radiation exposure.
Cleanup: Office of Solid Waste product and Emergency Response - Conducts and supervises investigation and cleanup actions at agile and abandoned waste sites, where oil or chancy chemicals have been or are threatened to be released into the environment, and where aboveground and surreptitious storage tanks have leaked.
International: Function of International and Tribal Diplomacy - Manages EPA'south interest in international policies and programs; provides leadership and coordination on behalf of the Agency; and acts as the focal point on international matters.
Pesticides: Office of Pesticide Programs - Evaluates potential new pesticides and use; reviews older pesticides; promotes reduced-risk pesticides and pesticide direction alternatives; communicates safe practices.
Pollutants/Toxics: Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics - Promotes pollution prevention, safer chemicals, risk reduction, and public understanding of risks.
Research: Role of Research and Development - The office'due south National Heart for Environmental Cess (NCEA) developed the Foundation for Global Activeness on POPs: A United States Perspective, a report on the electric current scientific discipline of POPs (in 2001).
Waste: Part of Resource Conservation and Recovery - Operates under authority of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to protect man health and the environment past ensuring responsible national management of hazardous and nonhazardous waste.
Water: Part of Water - Protects U.S. waters and develops consumption advisories for fish and wildlife. View Advisories and Technical Resources for Fish and Shellfish Consumption.
Smashing Lakes National Program Office - Based in Chicago, works with Canada and EPA Regions 2, 3, and 5 to address Bully Lake bug; communicates information nearly the Bully Lakes ecosystem and human health; and conducts monitoring and other activities.
Other Resources
- United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Chemicals Programme: http://www.unep.org/chemicalsandwaste/
- United states of america Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs
Great Lakes
- Swell Lakes Information Network: https://www.glc.org/glin
- International Joint Commission: www.ijc.org
Alaska and the Arctic
- Arctic Quango: world wide web.arctic-council.org
- Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme: www.amap.no
POPs chemicals threaten homo wellness and the surroundings all over the world. The Usa is committed to addressing POPs in cooperation with other countries. Together, we tin can find global solutions for this global problem.
Contacts
For more information about EPA'due south efforts with Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), contact:
Karissa Kovner
U.S. Environmental Protection Bureau
Office of the Assistant Administrator for Chemic Safety and Pollution Prevention (7101M)
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20460
E-mail: kovner.karissa@epa.gov
(202) 564-0564
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Source: https://www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/persistent-organic-pollutants-global-issue-global-response
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