posted on 1999-09-08, 00:00authored byBruce D. Rodan, David W. Pennington, Noelle Eckley, Robert S. Boethling
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is
currently coordinating negotiations to develop a binding
global agreement by late in the year 2000 to prohibit, restrict,
or reduce the production, use, or release of certain
persistent organic pollutants (POPs). POPs are a small
subset of organic chemicals whose characteristics
of persistence in the environment, accumulation in biological
organisms, and toxicity make them priority pollutants
and environmental risks to humans and ecosystems. Under
the UNEP negotiation, representatives are developing
criteria and procedures for the addition of substances,
guided by the initial list of 12 substances or substance groups
selected for global action. It is therefore timely to
investigate the scientific foundation for POPs screening
criteria that have been used in other international, regional,
and national programs, focusing on the properties of
persistence, bioaccumulation, toxicity, and long-range
transport in a policy context. The theoretical, empirical,
and multimedia modeling approaches used reveal that
guidance for setting POPs screening criteria can be developed
using a combination of science and policy input. These
approaches suggest that criteria adopted under regional
POPs agreements in North America and Europe are
reasonable and tend to isolate a limited number of clearly
hazardous POPs from the majority of organic chemicals,
while not being so stringent that the ability to respond to as
yet unidentified risks is seriously compromised.