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Legacy Pollution
Legacy pollution or legacy pollutants are persistent materials in the environment that were created through a polluting industry or process that have polluting effects after the process has finished. Frequently these include persistent organic pollutants, heavy metals or other chemicals residual in the environment long after the industrial or extraction processes that produced them. Often these are chemicals produced by industry and polluted before there was widespread awareness of the toxic effects of the pollutants, and subsequently regulated or banned. Notable legacy pollutants include mercury, PCBs, Dioxins and other chemicals that are widespread health and environmental effects. Sites for legacy pollutants include mining sites, industrial parks, waterways contaminated by industry, and other dump sites. These chemicals often have outsized impact in countries jurisdictions with little or no environmental monitoring or regulation—because the chemical were often produced in new ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Persistent Organic Pollutant
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs), sometimes known as "forever chemicals", are organic compounds that are resistant to environmental degradation through chemical, biological, and photolytic processes. They are toxic chemicals that adversely affect human health and the environment around the world. Because they can be transported by wind and water, most POPs generated in one country can and do affect people and wildlife far from where they are used and released. The effect of POPs on human and environmental health was discussed, with intention to eliminate or severely restrict their production, by the international community at the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001. Most POPs are pesticides or insecticides, and some are also solvents, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals. Although some POPs arise naturally (e.g. from volcanoes), most are man-made. The "dirty dozen" POPs identified by the Stockholm Convention include aldrin, chlordane, dield ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sustainable Development Policy Institute
Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable living). Sustainability is commonly described as having three dimensions (also called pillars): environmental, economic, and social. Many publications state that the environmental dimension (also called "planetary integrity" or "ecological integrity") is the most important, and, in everyday usage, "sustainability" is often focused on countering major environmental problems, such as climate change, loss of biodiversity, loss of ecosystem services, land degradation, and air and water pollution. Humanity is now exceeding several " planetary boundaries". A closely related concept is that of sustainable development, and the terms are often used synonymously. However, UNESCO distinguishes the two thus: "''Sustainability'' is often thought of as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polychlorinated Biphenyl
Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are highly carcinogenic chemical compounds, formerly used in industrial and consumer products, whose production was banned in the United States by the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1979 and internationally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001. They are organic chlorine compounds with the formula C12 H10−''x'' Cl''x''; they were once widely used in the manufacture of carbonless copy paper, as heat transfer fluids, and as dielectric and coolant fluids for electrical equipment. Because of their longevity, PCBs are still widely in use, even though their manufacture has declined drastically since the 1960s, when a host of problems were identified. With the discovery of PCBs' environmental toxicity, and classification as persistent organic pollutants, their production was banned by United States federal law in 1978, and by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2001. The International Agency ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chemicals
A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., without breaking chemical bonds. Chemical substances can be simple substances (substances consisting of a single chemical element), chemical compounds, or alloys. Chemical substances are often called 'pure' to set them apart from mixtures. A common example of a chemical substance is pure water; it has the same properties and the same ratio of hydrogen to oxygen whether it is isolated from a river or made in a laboratory. Other chemical substances commonly encountered in pure form are diamond (carbon), gold, table salt (sodium chloride) and refined sugar (sucrose). However, in practice, no substance is entirely pure, and chemical purity is specified according to the intended use of the chemical. Chemical substances exist as solids, liquids, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Defender
Environmental defenders or environmental human rights defenders are individuals or collectives who protect the environment from harms resulting from resource extraction, hazardous waste disposal, infrastructure projects, land appropriation, or other dangers. In 2019, the UN Human Rights Council unanimously recognised their importance to environmental protection. The term ''environmental defender'' is broadly applied to a diverse range of environmental groups and leaders from different cultures that all employ different tactics and hold different agendas. Use of the term is contested, as it homogenizes such a wide range of groups and campaigns, many of whom do not self-identify with the term and may not have explicit aims to protect the environment (being motivated primarily by social justice concerns). Environmental defenders involved in environmental conflicts face a wide range of threats from governments, local elites, and other powers that benefit from projects that defenders ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Environmental Justice
Environmental justice is a social movement to address the unfair exposure of poor and marginalized communities to harms from hazardous waste, resource extraction, and other land uses.Schlosberg, David. (2007) ''Defining Environmental Justice: Theories, Movements, and Nature''. Oxford University Press. The movement has generated hundreds of studies showing that exposure to environmental harms is inequitably distributed. The global environmental justice movement arises from place-based environmental conflicts in which local environmental defenders frequently confront multi-national corporations in resource extraction or other industries. Local outcomes of these conflicts are increasingly influenced by trans-national environmental justice networks. The movement began in the United States in the 1980s and was heavily influenced by the American civil rights movement. The original conception of environmental justice in the 1980s focused on harms to marginalised racial groups ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Right To A Healthy Environment
The right to a healthy environment or the right to a sustainable and healthy environment is a human right advocated by human rights organizations and environmental organizations to protect the ecological systems that provide human health. The right was acknowledged by the United Nations Human Rights Council during its 48th session in October 2021 in HRC/RES/48/13 and subsequently by the United Nations General Assembly on July 28, 2022 in A/RES/76/300. The right is often the basis for human rights defense by environmental defenders, such as land defenders, water protectors and indigenous rights activists. The right is interconnected with other health-focused human rights, such as the right to water and sanitation, right to food and right to health. The right to a healthy environment uses a human rights approach to protect environmental quality; this approach addresses the impact of environmental harm upon individual humans, as opposed to the more traditional approach of environ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stockholm Convention On Persistent Organic Pollutants
Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is an international environmental treaty, signed on 22 May 2001 in Stockholm and effective from 17 May 2004, that aims to eliminate or restrict the production and use of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). History In 1995, the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) called for global action to be taken on POPs, which it defined as "chemical substances that persist in the environment, bio-accumulate through the food web, and pose a risk of causing adverse effects to human health and the environment". Following this, the Intergovernmental Forum on Chemical Safety (IFCS) and the International Programme on Chemical Safety (IPCS) prepared an assessment of the 12 worst offenders, known as the ''dirty dozen''. The INC met five times between June 1998 and December 2000 to elaborate the convention, and delegates adopted the Stockholm Convention on POPs at the Conference of the Plenipotentiaries co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
