Past, Present, and Future Controls on Levels of Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Global Environment

• Published in: Environmental Science & Technology
• Main Authors: Nizzetto, Luca, Macleod, Matthew, Borgå, Katrine, Cabrerizo, Ana, Dachs, Jordi, Guardo, Antonio Di, Ghirardello, Davide, Hansen, Kaj M., Jarvis, Andrew, Lindroth, Anders, Ludwig, Bernard, Monteith, Donald, Perlinger, Judith A., Scheringer, Martin, Schwendenmann, Luitgard, Semple, Kirk T., Wick, Lukas Y., Zhang, Gan, Jones, Kevin C.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: Arctic; Climate change
• Online Access: https://uvadoc.uva.es/handle/10324/65151; https://doi.org/10.1021/es100178f

Producción Científica International agreements to limit or ban the production and/or use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have largely proven effective. However the persistence of these contaminants means that their environmental presence is hardly removed. Therefore assessing the future risk posed by POPs will require better knowledge of biogeochemical cycles. As remarked in this Feature by Nizzetto et al., climate change could further complicate matters. With improvements in measurement and models, the hope is to improve environmental health and limit the spread of compounds still in use and emergent contaminants. Under the Stockholm Convention, signatory countries are legally required to eliminate production, use, and emissions of persistent organic pollutants (POPs), with the goal of reducing human and ecosystem exposure. Available data and models indicate that atmospheric levels of the most well-studied legacy POPs, especially polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), hexachlorobenzene (HCB), and dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethanes (DDTs) are declining slowly in Europe, North America, and the Arctic (1-3). This decline is believed to primarily reflect the actions taken internationally over the last two decades to reduce or eliminate major primary sources associated with production and use. However, there are still ongoing primary releases from diffuse sources that are difficult to target for reduction or elimination, such as volatilization from old stockpiles, or from old equipment that is still in use (4). Understanding and predicting the past, current, and future trends of POPs in the environment requires that we account for both primary emissions and re-emissions to the atmosphere from reservoirs in the global environment. These “secondary sources” are soils, vegetation, water bodies, and, indirectly, sediments that were contaminated in the past when primary emissions were much higher. Net re-emission from these environmental media is triggered by declining atmospheric concentrations and controlled mainly ...