Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) is an international treaty aimed at protecting human health and the environment from harmful chemicals known for their persistence and toxicity. Opened for signature on May 23, 2001, the Convention targets specific substances that are linked to severe health issues, including neurological and reproductive damage, as well as immune system impairments. Among the banned or restricted substances are various organochlorine pesticides and industrial chemicals, such as DDT, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and dioxins, collectively referred to as the "dirty dozen."
These pollutants can bioaccumulate in living organisms and magnify in potency as they move up the food chain, posing significant risks to wildlife and human populations, especially in sensitive regions like the Arctic. The treaty arose in response to concerns over how these persistent pollutants transcend borders and remain in the environment for extended periods, leading to widespread exposure. Notably, limited use of DDT was allowed due to its effectiveness in controlling malaria-carrying mosquitoes, reflecting a balance between health and ecological considerations. Overall, the Convention represents a collaborative international effort to address the dangers posed by these hazardous substances, emphasizing the importance of global environmental governance.
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Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants
THE CONVENTION: International agreement banning or severely limiting the manufacture and use of certain substances linked to neurological, reproductive, and immune system damage in people and animals
DATE: Opened for signature on May 23, 2001
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants represents an international effort to reduce the threat of many persistent organic pollutants, which have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and other neurological, reproductive, and immune system damage in people and animals. At high levels, these chemicals can damage the central nervous system, and many also act as endocrine disrupters, causing deformities in sex organs as well as long-term dysfunction of reproductive systems.
The United Nations Environment Programme’s Governing Council in 1995 identified twelve persistent pollutants (POPs) as the subjects of an eventual ban on manufacture and use worldwide because these substances, known as the dirty dozen, damage the and the diversity of life supported by it. While many of these pollutants had already been banned in the United States, other countries had continued to manufacture and use them. The international ban was negotiated in Stockholm late in 2000, and ratification of the protocol followed in 2001.
The substances that were targeted for elimination by the Stockholm Convention included the organochlorine pesticides (such as chlordane, mirex, hexachlorobenzene, endrin, aldrin, toxaphene, heptachlor, and dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, or DDT) and industrial chemicals (including polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and the supertoxic dioxins and furans). DDT was allowed limited use because no other inexpensive alternatives were available to combat the mosquitoes that spread malaria. Because some of these substances (notably the PCBs and dioxins) are actually families comprising hundreds of chemicals, they could just as aptly be called the dirty hundreds as the dirty dozen.
Synthetic organochlorines such as dioxins and PCBs are perfect vehicles for worldwide because they ignore boundaries, natural or artificial. These chemicals also bioaccumulate (biomagnify, or intensify in potency) along the food chain, sometimes to thousands of times their original toxicity, posing special perils to animals, including human beings, who eat meat and fish. Problems related to their are especially acute in places, such as the polar regions, where currents in the atmosphere and oceans cause organochlorines to accumulate. Organochlorines produced in the past for commerce and those created unintentionally can be found in the air and in lakes, oceans, soils, sediments, and animals, including humans, in every region of the planet.
POPs are not soluble in water, but they dissolve easily in fats and oils, accumulating in the bodies of living organisms and becoming more concentrated as they move along the food chain. Extremely small levels of such contaminants in water or soil can magnify into lethal hazards to predators who feed at the top of the food web, such as dolphins, polar bears, herring gulls, and human beings.
In some regions of the world, indigenous peoples whose diets consist largely of sea animals (whales, polar bears, fish, and seals) have long been consuming a concentrated toxic chemical cocktail. Abnormally high levels of dioxins and other industrial chemicals have been detected in Inuit mothers’ breast milk. People in some villages in the Arctic experience higher concentrations of PCBs than anyone else on earth except victims of industrial accidents. They are at the top of a composed mainly of PCB-laced polar bears, seals, and other animals.
Bibliography
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Chasek, Pamela. "Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants." IISD Earth Negotiations Bulletin, 27 Apr. 2023, enb.iisd.org/articles/Stockholm-convention. Accessed 23 July 2024.
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