POLICY ANALYSIS pubs.acs.org/est
Are Reductions in Industrial Organic Contaminants Emissions in Rich Countries Achieved Partly by Export of Toxic Wastes? Knut Breivik,*,†,‡ Rosalinda Gioia,§ Paromita Chakraborty,|| Gan Zhang,|| and Kevin C. Jones§,|| †
Norwegian Institute for Air Research, P.O. Box 100, NO-2027 Kjeller, Norway Department of Chemistry, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1033, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway § Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, U.K. Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510640, China
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ABSTRACT: Recent studies show that PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) air concentrations remain surprisingly high in parts of Africa and Asia. These are regions where PCBs were never extensively used, but which are implicated as recipients of obsolete products and wastes containing PCBs and other industrial organic contaminants, such as halogenated flame retardants (HFRs). We hypothesize that there may be different trends in emissions across the globe, whereby emissions of some industrial organic contaminants may be decreasing faster in former use regions (due to emission reductions combined with uncontrolled export), at the expense of regions receiving these substances as obsolete products and wastes. We conclude that the potential for detrimental effects on the environment and human health due to long-range transport by air, water, or wastes should be of equal concern when managing and regulating industrial organic contaminants. This calls for a better integration of life-cycle approaches in the management and regulation of industrial organic contaminants in order to protect environmental and human health on a global scale. Yet, little remains known about the amounts of industrial organic contaminants exported outside former use regions as different types of wastes because of the often illicit nature of these operations.
’ INTRODUCTION PCBs are industrial organic contaminants identified as toxic, bioaccumulative, persistent, and subject to long-range transport (LRT) with global scale significance. PCBs and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) fulfilling these criteria are now regulated under the Stockholm Convention in order to protect environmental and human health from these harmful substances.1 PCBs may additionally be formed by de novo synthesis in various combustion processes, but these emissions are assumed less significant with respect to the overall global mass balance of these chemicals.2 4 Global production of PCBs peaked around 1970 and ceased in 1993 when the last factory closed in Russia. About half of the known historical production of PCBs took place at factories in the United States (∼48%), followed by Europe (∼33%), Russia (∼13%), Japan (∼5%) and China (
