Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are persistent organic pollutants (POPs). Recognizing that women, men and children can be affected differently following exposure to PCBs and other POPs, this report emphasizes the importance of engaging women and men alike as part of the solutions that the Global Environment Facility (GEF) project “Disposal of …
CSE welcomes the shift in Indian government's position on on endosulfan at the Stockholm Convention and wants government to expedite the phase out as its health hazards are now known & accepted.
The draft document of the Contact Group takes note of the recommendations by the POPRC to list technical endosulfan, its related isomers and endosulfan sulfate in Annex A of the convention, with specific exemptions. The group is yet to deliberate on pest-crop complex and the countries that have requested for …
Governments around the world will decide, at the on-going Fifth Conference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention, whether to continue allowing the recycling of materials containing dangerous chemicals, Executive Director of the Centre for Environmental Justice Hemantha Withanage said. The Stockholm Convention
India has submitted the National Implementation Plan of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs). MoEF will coordinate its implementation & the activities will spread over a period of 12 years from 2011-2022. The objective of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (SC) is to protect human health …
The chemical industry produces over 100,000 chemicals which have improved the quality of our lives. These chemicals are being produced for purposes ranging from fulfilling domestic and industrial needs, boosting agriculture, making our clothing fire resistant and producing components for our mobile phones or other electronic devices. Every day new …
In David and Goliath stand-offs public sympathy—and cheering—is always reserved for the heroic small man who takes on the big bad guy. The David usually represents valour in the face of heavy odds. That is how the Indian pharmaceuticals industry projected itself when it began producing generics medicine at a …
The objective of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (SC) is to protect human health and the environment from POPs. Article 7 of the SC calls for the development of the National Implementation Plan (NIP) that discusses how Parties aim to meet their obligations under the SC. This document …
A systematic and authoritative global review of the impacts of climate change on the dynamics and toxicity of POPs has been released jointly by the Secretariat of the Stockholm Convention and the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) at the UNEP Governing Council, in February 2011. The report of the …
Serum concentrations of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have been reported to be associated with the prevalence of type 2 diabetes in the U.S. general population, and this association appears to be higher among obese people than among the nonobese. However, because most previous studies were cross-sectional and because studies among …
As part of the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) study, XAD-resin based passive samplers are being deployed for consecutive one-year periods at numerous sites on all seven continents to determine annually averaged concentrations of persistent organic pollutants. Concentrations of banned organochlorine pesticides as well as a number of current-use pesticides …
The WHO Recommended Classification of Pesticides by Hazard has been published since 1975, has been revised and reissued every few years and has gained wide acceptance. This document sets out a classification system to distinguish between the more and the less hazardous forms of selected pesticides based (mainly) on acute …
After a lengthy scientific review, the United States last week decided to ban the use of endosulfan, an inexpensive organochlorine pesticide that builds up in the environment. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ruled that the compound
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are toxic chemicals that resist degradation and bioaccumulate. Despite attempts to limit the use and distribution of these chemicals, they are still widely detected in the environment. Schecter et al. determined the presence of POP contamination of food in the United States by measuring perfluorinated compounds …
At the fourth meeting of the POPRC in October 2008 the European Community and its Member States being parties to the Stockholm Convention have proposed endosulfan to be listed in Annex A, B or C of the Convention (UNEP/POPS/POPRC.4/14). At its 5th meeting in October 2009 the POPRC reviewed and …
The goal of this study was to identify commercial chemicals that might be persistent and bioaccumulative (P&B;) and that were not being considered in current Great Lakes, North American, and Arctic contaminant measurement programs. We combined the Canadian Domestic Substance List (DSL), a list of 3059 substances of
How do climate fluctuations affect DDT and hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) distribution in the global scale? In this study, the interactions between climate variations and depositions of DDT and HCH in ice cores from Mt. Everest (the Tibetan Plateau), Mt. Muztagata (the eastern Pamirs) and the Rocky Mountains were investigated. All data …
This recent report by Environmental Justice Foundation details the environmental and human impacts of 'endosulfan'. It highlights why it should be banned globally and provides suggestions for actions by national governments & other stakeholders to eradicate this deadly pesticide. This report considers the overwhelming evidence that the dangers associated with …
Many chemicals are dangerous to human and ecosystem health. Among the worst is a range of synthetic organic compounds that persist in the environment for long periods of time. GEF
