Explanation of Key Trends - Persistent Organic Pollutants

Last updated on 09 Oct 2018 06:49 (cf. Authors)

Please note: Data for persistent organic pollutants may have issues such as missing sources. It features considerably higher uncertainties then data for other pollutants covered in this report. Read more...

Obligations

The 1998 Aarhus Protocol on Persistent Organic Pollutants under the CLRTAP entered into force late in 2003. It focuses on a list of 16 substances that have been singled out according to agreed risk criteria. The substances comprise eleven pesticides, two industrial chemicals and three by-products/contaminants. The ultimate objective is to eliminate any discharges, emissions and losses of POPs. The Protocol bans the production and use of some products outright (aldrin, chlordane, chlordecone, dieldrin, endrin, hexabromobiphenyl, mirex and toxaphene). Others are scheduled for elimination at a later stage (DDT, heptachlor, hexaclorobenzene, PCBs). Finally, the Protocol severely restricts the use of DDT, HCH (including lindane) and PCBs. The Protocol includes provisions for dealing with the wastes of products that will be banned. It also obliges Germany to reduce its emissions of dioxins, furans, PAHs and HCB below their levels in 1990. For the incineration of municipal, hazardous and medical waste, it lays down specific limit values.

Main drivers

Persistent organic pollutants give a mixed picture both in terms of development and sources. All POP emissions decreased substantially between 1990 and 2015: Dioxins (Teq) by 85.2%, PCB by 86.9%, HCB by 86.5% and PAH Total by 51.4%. But uncertainties are significantly higher than for the other air pollutants reported.

Trends

The figure below shows trends for the main groups of persistent organic pollutants:

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License

SSL configuration warning

This site has been configured to use only SSL (HTTPS) secure connection. SSL is available only for Pro+ premium accounts.

If you are the master administrator of this site, please either upgrade your account to enable secure access. You can also disable SSL access in the Site Manager for this site.