What are POPs?

 

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are defined as the families of anthropogenic chemical pollutants with the following properties:

• they are highly toxic and have a wide range of chronic and effects (endocrine disrupters, carcinogenicity)
• they are stable chemically, therefore not easily degraded in the environment and organisms.
• they are lipophillic (they tend to bond easily with fat) and accumulates into the foodchains
• they can undergo long-range transport, therefore important levels have been reported in Polar regions, although no sources exist in these regions.

 

 

POPs were either directly spread directly in the nature (e.g. the organochlorine pesticides), released from the materials in which they were initially used as flame retardants (e.g. PCBs or PBDEs) or emitted as waste during combustion processes (e.g: dioxins and furans). These chemicals represent a major hazard for environment and public health, even at trace concentration.