2018 Volume 29 Issue 6 Pages 452-460
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) was enacted in 2004, initially covering just 12 chemicals. Since that time the number of POPs has greatly increased, and there are currently a total of 28 POPs listed in the Convention as of 2017. Since most of the newly added POPs are plastic additives, such as brominated flame retardants and plasticizers, which are added to a wide range of products, there may be a considerable amount of dilution and diffusion of POPs through plastic material recycling. To ensure that stockpiles and wastes, including products and articles upon becoming waste, consisting of, containing or contaminated with POPs, are managed in a way that is protective of human health and the environment, the development of technical guidelines on environmentally sound management of POPs wastes is in progress under the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. This article first outlines the main contents and issues of the Basel Convention technical guidelines and goes on to introduce several case studies conducted by our research group on POP destruction experiments.
