Persistent Organic Pollutants

• Published in: Frontiers in Marine Science
• Main Authors: Ross, Peter S., Grant, Paul B.C.
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2008
• Subjects: Arctic; Canada; Pacific; inuit
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9780470061596.risk0512; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9780470061596.risk0512

Abstract Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) comprise a wide range of chemicals, which for the most part have either been intentionally manufactured or created as an unintended consequence of human activities. Some have been used in closed systems (e.g., polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, as dielectric fluids), while others are intentionally applied to ecosystem compartments (e.g., organochlorine pesticides). Many POPs are classified as being persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic: properties that shape their movement and fate in the environment, and dictate their impact on human and animal health. Accidental exposures in humans or widespread ecological impacts in the past led to a variety of national regulations and international treaties, such that some of the more notorious chemical classes are no longer widely used. Such “legacy” POPs contrast the continued use of POPs for which the evidence is less clear and the emergence of new chemical products for which a limited understanding exists (e.g., polybrominated diphenylethers, PBDEs). The extent to which experience from past failures and subsequently developed risk assessment paradigms will protect the biosphere from impacts in the future remains open to debate. Unfortunately, the witnesses are often those far removed from the source of the chemical and represent constituent groups with little influence on regulations, such as the highly POP‐contaminated subsistence‐oriented Inuit people of Arctic Canada, or the killer whales of the NE Pacific Ocean.