Scientists Have Developed a Synthetic Substance That Can _____.
This page was created:
- to heighten sensation most the health and ecology impacts of persistent organic pollutants (POPs),
- to show what actions the U.s. and another countries have already taken to address these pollutants, and
- to draw the actions fix into movement past the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants to accost this issue globally.
The folio explains the importance of the Stockholm Convention, a legally binding international understanding finalized in 2001. In the Stockholm Convention, participating governments agreed to take actions to reduce or eliminate the production, use, and/or release of certain of these pollutants.
This content was created in 2002 and updated in Dec 2009.
Contents
- What Are POPs?
- What Domestic Deportment Have Been Taken to Control POPs?
- How Practice POPs Affect People and Wildlife?
- The Great Lakes: A Story of Trials and Triumphs
- Alaska: POPs in America'south Arctic
- The Stockholm Convention
- Table: The "Dirty Dozen"
- What Has the United States Done to Address POPs Globally?
- Resources
A Global Result
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are toxic chemicals that adversely touch on homo health and the surroundings around the world. Because they can be transported by wind and water, most POPs generated in 1 land tin and practise affect people and wildlife far from where they are used and released. They persist for long periods of time in the environs and tin can accrue and laissez passer from one species to the adjacent through the nutrient chain. To address this global concern, the Us joined forces with 90 other countries and the European Community to sign a groundbreaking Un treaty in Stockholm, Sweden, in May 2001. Under the treaty, known every bit the Stockholm Convention, countries agreed to reduce or eliminate the product, apply, and/or release of 12 key POPs (see box), and specified under the Convention a scientific review process that has led to the improver of other POPs chemicals of global concern.
Many of the POPs included in the Stockholm Convention are no longer produced in this country. Withal, U.S. citizens and habitats can yet be at risk from POPs that have persisted in the surroundings from unintentionally produced POPs that are released in the U.s., from POPs that are released elsewhere and and then transported here (past air current or water, for example), or from both. Although most developed nations have taken strong action to control POPs, a great number of developing nations accept only fairly recently begun to restrict their production, employ, and release.
The Stockholm Convention adds an important global dimension to our national and regional efforts to command POPs. Though the U.s. is non yet a 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 the states have significantly reduced the release of dioxins and furans to land, air, and h2o from U.South. sources. In addition to assessing dioxins, EPA has also been working diligently on the reduction of Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane from global sources. The U.s. and Canada signed an agreement for the Virtual Emptying of Persistent Toxic Substances in the Neat Lakes to reduce emissions from toxic substances. The United states has also 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 has also provided ample fiscal and technical support to countries across 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 Russian federation.
What Are POPs?
Many POPs were widely used during the boom in industrial product after Earth War II, when thousands of synthetic chemicals were introduced into commercial employ. Many of these chemicals proved beneficial in pest and disease control, crop production, and industry. These same chemicals, however, accept had unforeseen furnishings on human being wellness and the environs.
Many people are familiar with some of the well-nigh well-known POPs, such every bit PCBs, DDT, and dioxins. POPs include a range of substances that include:
- Intentionally produced chemicals currently or once used in agriculture, affliction command, manufacturing, or industrial processes. Examples include PCBs, which accept been useful in a variety of industrial applications (e.g., in electric transformers and large capacitors, as hydraulic and oestrus exchange fluids, and as additives to paints and lubricants) and Ddt, which is still used to command mosquitoes that comport 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 Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane Dilemma
DDT is likely one of the most famous and controversial pesticides always fabricated. An estimated four billion pounds of this inexpensive and historically effective chemical have been produced and applied worldwide since 1940. In the United States, Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane was used extensively on agricultural crops, peculiarly cotton wool, from 1945 to 1972. Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane was also used to protect soldiers from insect-borne diseases such as malaria and typhus during World State of war II, and it remains a valuable public health tool in parts of the tropics. The heavy use of this highly persistent chemical, nevertheless, led to widespread environmental contagion and the aggregating of Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane in humans and wild fauna - a phenomenon brought to public attending by Rachel Carson in her 1962 book, Silent Jump. A wealth of scientific laboratory and field data have at present confirmed research from the 1960s that suggested, among other furnishings, that high levels of DDE (a metabolite of Ddt) in sure birds of prey caused their eggshells to sparse so dramatically they could not produce alive offspring.
Ane bird species especially sensitive to DDE was the bald hawkeye. Public concern near the eagles' decline and the possibility of other long-term harmful effects of DDT exposure to both humans and wildlife prompted the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to cancel 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 Dust: This figure shows a satellite image of the passage of a cloud of dust across the Pacific Ocean to N America. This dust cloud was raised by a storm in Asia in Apr 2001. Also shown is a grit cloud from northern Africa traveling west over the Atlantic Ocean.
A major impetus for the Stockholm Convention was the finding of POPs contagion in relatively pristine Arctic regions - thousands of miles from whatsoever known source. Much of the evidence for long-range transport of airborne gaseous and particulate substances to the The states focuses on dust or fume considering they are visible in satellite images. Tracing the movement of most POPs in the surroundings is complex because these compounds can exist in different phases (e.k., as a gas or fastened to airborne particles) and tin be exchanged among ecology media. For case, 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. And then, they tin can render to Earth on particles or in snow, rain, or mist. POPs also travel through oceans, rivers, lakes, and, to a lesser extent, with the assistance of animal carriers, such as migratory species.
What Domestic Actions Have Been Taken to Command POPs?
The U.s. has taken stiff domestic action to reduce emissions of POPs. For instance, none of the original POPs pesticides listed in the Stockholm Convention is registered for sale and distribution in the Us today and in 1978, Congress prohibited the manufacture of PCBs and severely restricted the use of remaining PCB stocks. In addition, since 1987, EPA and united states of america accept finer reduced environmental releases of dioxins and furans to land, air, and water from U.S. sources. These regulatory actions, along with voluntary efforts by U.S. industry, resulted in a greater than 85 per centum decline in total dioxin and furan releases after 1987 from known industrial sources. To better sympathise the risks associated with dioxin releases, EPA has been conducting a comprehensive reassessment of dioxin science and will be evaluating additional deportment that might further protect human health and the environment.
Stopping Ddt Apply
Over the years, the Us has taken a number of steps to restrict the apply of Ddt:
1969: After studying the persistence of DDT residues in the environment, the U.S. Department of Agronomics (USDA)cancels the registration of certain uses of Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (on shade copse, on tobacco, in the home, and in aquatic environments).
1970: USDA cancels Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane applications on crops, commercial plants, and wood products, also as for building purposes.
1972: Under the say-so of EPA, the registrations of the remaining DDT products are canceled.
1989: The remaining exempted uses (public health use for controlling vector-borne diseases, armed services use for quarantine, and prescription drug employ for decision-making body lice) are voluntarily stopped.
Today: In that location is no U.S. registration for Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, meaning that information technology cannot legally be sold or distributed in the United States.
Controlling Dioxins
EPA has pursued regulatory control and management of dioxins and furans releases to air, water, and soil. The Clean Air Act requires the application of maximum doable control applied science for hazardous air pollutants, including dioxins and furans. Major sources regulated nether this authority include municipal, medical, and hazardous waste incineration; pulp and newspaper manufacturing; and sure 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 Make clean Water Act. The cleanup of dioxin-contaminated land is an of import part of the EPA Superfund and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Corrective Activity programs. Voluntary actions to control dioxins and furans include EPA'southward Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxics Plan and the Dioxin Exposure Initiative, both of which gather information to inform time to come actions and farther reduce risks associated with dioxin exposure.
How Exercise POPs Affect People and Wild fauna?
Studies have linked POPs exposures to declines, diseases, or abnormalities in a number of wild animals species, including sure kinds of fish, birds, and mammals. Wild fauna as well can human activity as sentinels for human health: abnormalities or declines detected in wildlife populations can sound an early warning bell for people. Behavioral abnormalities and birth defects in fish, birds, and mammals in and effectually the Great Lakes, for example, led scientists to investigate POPs exposures in man populations (see below for more data on the Great Lakes).
In people, reproductive, developmental, behavioral, neurologic, endocrine, and immunologic agin health furnishings 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. It should be noted, yet, that despite this potential exposure, the known benefits of chest-feeding far outweigh the suspected risks.
A number of populations are at particular risk 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 especially at risk considering they observe cultural and spiritual traditions related to their diet. To them, fishing and hunting are not sport or recreation, but are function of a traditional, subsistence style of life, in which no useful part of the catch is wasted. In remote areas of Alaska and elsewhere, locally obtained subsistence nutrient may be the only readily available option for diet (run into below for more than information on the Arctic).
In addition, sensitive populations, such equally children, the elderly, and those with suppressed immune systems, are typically more than susceptible to many kinds of pollutants, including POPs. Considering POPs have been linked to reproductive impairments, men and women of child-bearing age may also be at risk.
POPS and the Nutrient Chain
POPs work their fashion through the nutrient concatenation by accumulating in the body fat of living organisms and becoming more than concentrated as they move from one animal to another. This process is known every bit "biomagnification." When contaminants plant in small-scale amounts at the bottom of the food chain biomagnify, they tin can pose a significant hazard to predators that feed at the meridian of the nutrient chain. This means that even small releases of POPs can have significant impacts.
Biomagnification in Action: A 1997 report by the Chill Monitoring and Cess Plan, called Arctic Pollution Issues: A State of the Arctic Environment Report, institute that caribou in Canada's Northwest Territories had as much every bit 10 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 as the lichen.
The Part of Science
Although scientists accept more than to learn well-nigh POPs chemicals, decades of scientific research have greatly increased our cognition of POPs' impacts on people and wildlife. For case, laboratory studies accept shown that low doses of certain POPs adversely affect some organ systems and aspects of development. Studies also have shown that chronic exposure to depression doses of certain POPs can result in reproductive and allowed organisation deficits. Exposure to loftier levels of certain POPs chemicals - higher than unremarkably encountered by humans and wildlife - tin cause serious damage or death. Epidemiological studies of exposed human populations and studies of wild animals might provide more information on wellness impacts. Nonetheless, because such studies are less controlled than laboratory studies, other stresses cannot be ruled out equally the cause of agin effects.
As we continue to study POPs, we will acquire more about the run a risk of POPs exposure to the full 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 tin can be deposited in marine and freshwater ecosystems through effluent releases, atmospheric deposition, runoff, and other means. Because POPs have low h2o solubility, they bond strongly to particulate thing in aquatic sediments. As a effect, sediments tin serve as reservoirs or "sinks" for POPs. When sequestered in these sediments, POPs can be taken out of circulation for long periods of time. If disturbed, yet, they can exist reintroduced into the ecosystem and food chain, potentially becoming a source of local, and even global, contamination.
The Corking Lakes: A Story of Trials and Triumphs
The Corking Lakes - Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario - and their connecting channels make up the largest arrangement of fresh surface water in the globe. A vital resource for the United States and Canada, the Bang-up Lakes are used for fishing, swimming, boating, agriculture, manufacture, and tourism; they are also a source of drinking water and free energy.
Despite their size, however, the Not bad 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 Not bad 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 enough quantities to warrant concern regarding the furnishings on human wellness and wildlife, including several species of fish and shellfish, bald eagles and other birds of prey, and fish-eating mammals such as mink.
Extensive cleanup and pollution command efforts were subsequently launched, and many contaminant levels accept declined dramatically in the Dandy Lakes every bit a outcome, illustrating the positive outcomes that can be achieved when communities, authorities, and industry work together to reduce pollution. Still, some POPs exist at significant concentrations, indicating their persistence and the possibility of continued contamination from other sources, specially long-range atmospheric ship 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 up and control pollution of these waters. In 1978, they signed a new agreement, which added a commitment to work together to rid the Great Lakes of persistent toxic chemicals, some of which are POPs. Equally office of this agreement, both countries have been monitoring atmospheric loadings of these chemicals to the Keen Lakes since 1990.
The Great Lakes Binational Toxics Strategy, signed by the U.s.a. and Canada in 1997, was an agreement aimed to reduce several persistent toxic pollutants, including certain POPs, in the Bang-up Lakes Basin over a 10-twelvemonth menstruum. 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 deportment. Over the form of the ten-year catamenia, working closely with state, provincial, tribal, and local governments and stakeholders from industry, academia, environmental and community groups, both governments fabricated pregnant progress in coming together that goal of near eliminating persistent toxic substances such as mercury, PCBs, and dioxin from discharging into the Not bad Lakes environment. The ii governments agreed to continue to extend the understanding in lodge to work together to identify new challenges that are presented by emerging substance of concern, such equally flame retardants.
Great Lakes Research
Through these efforts, we will steadily keep to reduce levels of toxics in fish. Someday we will respond the question . . . that, yes, Neat Lakes fish are safe to eat by anyone, anywhere.
Today, much of our cognition of POPs, populations at risk, and possible health effects comes from research conducted in the Great 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 betwixt fish consumption and elevated POPs levels in blood, leading researchers to conclude that people can be exposed to POPs by eating contaminated fish.
Equally a result, extensive fish contaminant monitoring programs take been established in the Keen Lakes states, and fish consumption advisories are regularly released to assistance inform people which fish are rubber to eat and how much is prophylactic to swallow (see Resources below).
Nosotros have also learned that currently some POPs primarily enter the Great Lakes from the air and that urban areas are major sources of airborne POPs.
Alaska: POPs in America's Arctic
For many Americans, Alaska (much of which is in the Arctic) conjures images of commanding tundra, glaciers, and pure coastal waters - a remote and wild land relatively untouched by the human hand. Simply even here, POPs accept been constitute in the air, h2o, soil, plants, fish, and other wildlife.
Some POPs have been used or released in Alaska and other northern regions by armed services sites, smelters, lurid and paper mills, power stations, mines, and other sources. Others have rarely or never been used locally.
POPs can enter Alaska and the Arctic in several means, too. The first indication that Arctic pollution could originate elsewhere came during the 1950s, when pilots noticed a haze in the Northward American Arctic that was somewhen traced to sources in the lower latitudes. Since so, scientists accept discovered that POPs tin can accomplish Arctic regions via air, water, and, to a bottom extent, migratory species.
Due to global wind patterns, Alaska tin can receive POPs from both east asia and northern Europe. POPs can also travel in rivers from southeast and central Asia into the Pacific Ocean, where water currents flow into the Chill Body of water.
Alaska's expansive tundra and shut proximity to the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean brand information technology a home for a broad multifariousness 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 fatty direct into their bodies. Then, in the spring, a critical flow of reproduction for Alaskan wildlife, POPs that have accumulated in the ice and snow can be released into the surround and the food chain.
The Alaskan and Chill ecosystems are fragile and take a long time to recover from damage. In addition, slow-growing plants (and the animals that feed on these plants) can be exposed to bioaccumulating contaminants such as POPs for a long time before beingness consumed at the next level in the nutrient chain. For example, POPs accumulation in and on lichen in Alaska may contribute to levels of contaminants establish in caribou tissue. The caribou, in turn, tin can then be exposed to these contaminants for a long time earlier beingness consumed by predators themselves.
Living Close to the Country
The traditional Alaskan Native's way of life is rooted in a shut relationship with the country. For many Native cultures, subsistence activities (such as hunting seals, whales, and birds; fishing; and gathering bird eggs) are the main methods of procuring food. Alaskan Natives therefore swallow much more fish than the average American and more often consume animals higher on the food concatenation, including predator species such equally seals, sea lions, bears, and toothed whales, all of which have potentially higher levels of POPs.
Cooperation in the Chill
In 1991, nations with territory in the Arctic developed the Arctic Environmental Protection Strategy to protect, raise, and restore the Arctic ecosystems. In 1996, those same nations established the Arctic Council, a high-level intergovernmental forum, to address environmental protection and sustainable development in the Arctic. The member nations of the Council are Canada, Kingdom of denmark, Republic of finland, Norway, Russian federation, Iceland, Sweden, and the United States. The Chill Quango Action Plan has launched a number of projects to reduce the use and release of POPs inside the Arctic nations. The Arctic Council'due south Chill Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) provides member nations with data on threats to the Chill environment and scientific advice on remedial and preventive deportment to protect the environment 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 man health and the environment from highly harmful chemicals that persist in the environment and affect the well-being of humans as well every bit wildlife. The Convention requires parties to eliminate and/or reduce POPs, which have a potential of causing devastating effects such every bit cancer and diminished intelligence and have the power to travel over bang-up distances.
The Stockholm Convention is managed by the United Nations Environment Program and its Secretariat is based in Geneva, Switzerland. UNEP is the leading international environmental entity that supports the agenda and implementation of environmental sustainability for the United nations. The COP, or the Conference of the Parties of the Stockholm Convention, governs the POPs Convention, with its members being the Convention'due south Parties.
The office of Parties is to implement the obligations of the Convention, including eliminating or restricting the production and utilize of the intentionally produced POPs, prohibiting and eliminating production and utilise or import of POPs, conducting enquiry, identifying areas contaminated with POPs, and providing fiscal support and incentives for the Convention. The process of becoming a Political party begins with a state or regional economic integration arrangement submitting a means of ratification, acceptance, blessing or accretion to the depositary. Official contact points and national focal points are nominated to comport out administrative, communications, and data exchange procedures.
While the Convention initially focused on 12 intentionally and unintentionally produced chemicals (come across list above), the Convention began adding additional substances to the understanding in May of 2009 and will keep to do so. For the most updated list of substances covered past the Convention, please visit www.pops.int.
Intentionally Produced POPs
In the Us, the treaty is of particular importance for the people and environment of Alaska, which are impacted by POPs transported by air and water from outside the state. This is particularly 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 Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane and PCBs.
Ddt is placed in the restriction annex, which ways that its product and use is restricted to illness-vector control. The Convention also establishes a public Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane registry of users and producers, and it encourages the evolution of safe, constructive, affordable, and environmentally friendly alternatives.
For PCBs, the Convention prohibits new PCB production and envisages phasing out electrical equipment that contains loftier concentrations of PCBs by 2025.
Merchandise
The Convention prohibits trade in POPs chemicals for which Parties have eliminated product and use. Such POPs may be exported only for environmentally sound disposal. For those POPs that one or more Parties go on to produce or use pursuant to specific exemptions, the Convention allows export of such POPs only to those Parties that have an immune use exemption under the Convention and those non-Parties that provide certification that they will minimize or prevent environmental releases and destroy or dispose of the POPs in an environmentally sound fashion.
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-calibration 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 date that the Convention enters into force for that Party.
The Convention as well allows Parties to register for specific exemptions on a state-by-country footing. These exemptions are subject to review and expire later 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 continuing minimization and, where feasible, ultimate elimination. It specifically requires Parties to:
- Develop national action plans to address the release of these POPs.
- Promote the evolution of preventative measures.
- Apply best available techniques (BAT) for sure new pollution sources (east.thousand., municipal, hospital, and hazardous waste matter incinerators) within 4 years afterwards the Convention enters into force. Parties must also promote BAT and best environmental practices for other new and existing sources.
POPs Wastes
Amid 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 employ and wastes consisting of, containing, or contaminated with any POPs chemical.
- Sites contaminated with POPs.
It also requires Parties to take advisable measures so that POPs wastes are managed in an environmentally sound manner. This includes both destruction and disposal techniques. Although remediation of contaminated sites is non required, whatsoever such remediation must be performed in an environmentally sound manner.
Financial and Technical Help
The Convention creates a flexible system of technical and financial assistance to help developing countries and countries with economies in transition to meet their obligations. Although the Convention does not create a new fund or found specific assessments, developed countries are to collectively provide new and boosted fiscal resource. These funds will enable developing state Parties to meet the agreed full incremental costs of implementing measures to fulfill their obligations nether the Convention. On an interim basis, the Convention designates the Gef (GEF) equally the primary, but non exclusive, component of the fiscal mechanism. The Global environment facility is a financial mechanism established to accost global environmental threats.
The Convention also specifies that adult countries provide technical assistance and chapters building to help developing countries and countries with economies in transition run into their obligations.
Procedure for Adding New Chemicals
New chemicals tin be added to the treaty based on a scientific review process that involves Parties and interested observers. The bones steps of the process are every bit follows:
- When a Party nominates a chemical, the proposal is sent to a scientific review committee comprised of government- designated experts, who utilize the Convention's screening criteria (for persistence, bioaccumulation, toxicity, and long-range transport).
- If the chemical meets the screening criteria, the commission prepares a risk profile for the chemical.
- If, on the basis of the risk contour, the committee finds that the "chemic is likely, as a upshot of its long-range environmental transport to atomic number 82 to meaning agin human health and/or environmental furnishings such that global action is warranted," the committee prepares a take a chance direction evaluation that considers socio-economic factors.
- Based on the hazard contour and the risk management evaluation, the review committee makes a recommendation to the COP whether the chemical should be listed or not listed nether the Convention.
- The COP makes the final decision -by three-fourths majority - as to whether the chemical will be listed under the Convention.
The decision of the COP to add a chemic to the treaty is binding on all Parties 1 year later, except for (a) Parties that "opt out" of this decision inside the 1-year period, or (b) Parties that choose to invoke a separate "opt in" procedure under which they are not bound until they affirmatively have a new obligation. The COP began adding new chemicals to the agreement in May of 2009.
Monitoring Process
The Convention provides for an effectiveness evaluation, based on a POPs monitoring and data collection endeavour that will employ existing monitoring programs and mechanisms to the extent possible.
The "Muddied Dozen"
| POP | Global Historical Employ/Source | Overview of U.S. Condition |
|---|---|---|
| aldrin and dieldrin | Insecticides used on crops such as corn and cotton; also used for termite control. | Nether FIFRA:
|
| chlordane | Insecticide used on crops, including vegetables, small grains, potatoes, sugarcane, sugar beets, fruits, nuts, citrus, and cotton fiber. Used on home lawn and garden pests. Too used extensively to control termites. | Under FIFRA:
No production (stopped in 1997), import, or export. Regulated as a hazardous air pollutant (CAA). |
| DDT | Insecticide used on agricultural crops, primarily cotton, and insects that deport diseases such as malaria and typhus. | Under FIFRA: No U.Due south. registrations; most uses canceled in
No U.S. product, import, or export. DDE (a metabolite of Ddt) regulated as a chancy air pollutant (CAA). Priority toxic pollutant (CWA). |
| endrin | Insecticide used on crops such as cotton wool and grains; also used to control rodents. | Nether FIFRA, no U.S. registrations; most uses canceled in 1979; all uses past 1984. No product, import, or export. Priority toxic pollutant (CWA). |
| mirex | Insecticide used to combat burn down ants, termites, and mealybugs. Also used every bit a fire retardant in plastics, rubber, and electrical products. | Under FIFRA, no U.S. registrations; all uses canceled in 1977. No production, import, or export. |
| heptachlor | Insecticide used primarily confronting soil insects and termites. Also used against some ingather pests and to combat malaria. | Under FIFRA:
in 1989. No product, import, or export. |
| hexachlorobenzene | Fungicide used for seed treatment. Also an industrial chemical used to make fireworks, armament, synthetic rubber, and other substances. Also unintentionally produced during combustion and the manufacture of certain chemicals. Also an impurity in certain pesticides. | Under FIFRA, no U.S. registrations; all uses canceled by 1985. No production, import, or export as a pesticide. Manufacture and use for chemical intermediate (every bit allowed under the Convention). Regulated as a chancy air pollutant (CAA). Priority toxic pollutant (CWA). |
| PCBs | Used for a variety of industrial processes and purposes, including in electrical transformers and capacitors, every bit heat exchange fluids, as paint additives, in carbonless re-create newspaper, 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 impale unwanted fish in lakes. | Nether FIFRA:
No product, import, or export. Regulated as a hazardous air pollutant (CAA). |
| dioxins and furans | Unintentionally produced during almost forms of combustion, including called-for of municipal and medical wastes, backyard burning of trash, and industrial processes. Also can be plant equally trace contaminants in certain herbicides, wood preservatives, and in PCB mixtures. | Regulated as hazardous air pollutants (CAA). Dioxin in the form of 2,3,7,eight-TCDD is a priority toxic pollutant (CWA). |
Acronyms:
FIFRA: Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Human activity
TSCA: Toxic Substances Control Act
CAA: Clean Air Deed
CWA: Clean H2o Act
What Has the United States Washed to Accost 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 The 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, Canada, and United mexican states established the Committee for Environmental Cooperation (CEC) under the Due north American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) (PDF)(40 pp, 75 K, About PDF), which in turn developed a regional initiative on the sound management of chemicals. Under this initiative, the CEC has developed Regional Activeness Plans, which identify activities that reduce or eliminate risks from chemicals of concern. The CEC, for example, established such plans for PCBs, DDT, and chlordane.
- The Us signed the legally binding regional protocol with other fellow member nations (including European countries, Canada, and Russia) of the Un Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) on POPs under the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution (LRTAP) . This understanding 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), simply, like the Stockholm Convention, included a mechanism for adding additional substances to the agreement. Elements from the LRTAP POPs Protocol were used in negotiations for the Stockholm Convention. The United States has not yet ratified the Protocol.
- Other international piece of work has addressed trade in hazardous substances, some of which are POPs. The U.s., along with 71 other countries and the European Community, take signed the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Process for Sure Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Merchandise , edifice on a 10-year-old voluntary programme. The PIC Convention identifies pesticides and industrial chemicals of business organization, facilitates information sharing about their risks, and provides countries with an opportunity to make informed decisions about whether they should be imported. Some of the Pop substances are already on the PIC list.
- The United states of america has also provided technical and financial assistance for POPs-related activities to a variety of countries and regions, including Mexico, Central and S America, Russia, Asia, and Africa. Examples of this aid include development of dioxin and furan release inventories in Russia and Asia, the Chemicals Data Exchange and Networking Projection for chemicals managers in targeted countries in Africa and Fundamental 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 encounter the requirements of both the Stockholm Convention and the LRTAP POPs Protocol.
- The United States is also an observer to the Basel Convention , which was designed to reduce cross-border movements of chancy waste matter. The Convention focuses on improving controls on the motility of waste product, including some POPs waste, preventing illegal traffic, and ensuring that waste is disposed of as close every bit possible to its source.
Resource
The post-obit resource, many of which are referenced in this page, provide more information on POPs, the Stockholm Convention, and the U.Due south. role in POPs reduction and elimination.
Programs of the U.S. Environmental Protection Bureau
Search www.epa.gov under the following key words (in bold):
Air: Office of Air and Radiations - Develops national programs, technical policies, and regulations for decision-making air pollution and radiations exposure.
Cleanup: Part of Solid Waste and Emergency Response - Conducts and supervises investigation and cleanup actions at active and abandoned waste product sites, where oil or hazardous chemicals have been or are threatened to be released into the environment, and where aboveground and underground storage tanks take leaked.
International: Part of International and Tribal Diplomacy - Manages EPA's involvement in international policies and programs; provides leadership and coordination on behalf of the Bureau; 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-take chances pesticides and pesticide management 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: Part of Inquiry and Development - The part's National Eye for Ecology Assessment (NCEA) developed the Foundation for Global Action on POPs: A Us Perspective, a written report on the current scientific discipline of POPs (in 2001).
Waste: Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery - Operates under authority of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act to protect human health and the environment by ensuring responsible national management of hazardous and nonhazardous waste.
Water: Office of Water - Protects U.S. waters and develops consumption advisories for fish and wildlife. View Advisories and Technical Resources for Fish and Shellfish Consumption.
Great Lakes National Plan Office - Based in Chicago, works with Canada and EPA Regions 2, 3, and 5 to accost Great Lake issues; communicates data virtually the Not bad Lakes ecosystem and human health; and conducts monitoring and other activities.
Other Resources
- United Nations Environs Programme (UNEP) Chemicals Programme: http://www.unep.org/chemicalsandwaste/
- United States Department of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs
Great Lakes
- Great Lakes Information Network: https://www.glc.org/glin
- International Articulation Committee: www.ijc.org
Alaska and the Chill
- Arctic Council: www.arctic-council.org
- Chill Monitoring and Cess Plan: world wide web.amap.no
POPs chemicals threaten homo wellness and the environment all over the earth. The United States is committed to addressing POPs in cooperation with other countries. Together, we can notice global solutions for this global trouble.
Contacts
For more data about EPA'south efforts with Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), contact:
Karissa Kovner
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Office of the Assistant Administrator for Chemic Prophylactic and Pollution Prevention (7101M)
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20460
Electronic mail: kovner.karissa@epa.gov
(202) 564-0564
Source: https://www.epa.gov/international-cooperation/persistent-organic-pollutants-global-issue-global-response
0 Response to "Scientists Have Developed a Synthetic Substance That Can _____."
Post a Comment