Reprinted from WORLD WATCH, March/April 2000

POPs Culture
by Anne Platt McGinn

© 2000 Worldwatch Institute

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 POPS
Culture
If there’s one form of industrial innovation that we can defi-
nitely do without, it’s the kind that is continually producing
new Persistent Organic Pollutants—toxins so potent and
durable that current emissions may still be causing cancer
and birth defects 1,000 years from now.

by Anne Platt McGinn

B etween 1962 and 1970, U.S. soldiers and

their South Vietnamese allies sprayed
nearly 12 million gallons of herbicide over
vast tracts of Southeast Asian forest and
more than half of South Vietnam’s arable land. The
program was designed to eliminate any cover that
might conceal North Vietnamese Army units or Viet
At the time, the spraying of agent orange seemed
a relatively minor part of the conflict. The dioxins,
however, will linger in Vietnam’s soil long after the
war has vanished from living memory. Yet no one is
really sure how much damage has been done.
Medical doctors in Vietnam do not, by and large,
have the resources to carry out longterm public
Cong guerrillas. The crews on the planes that did the health studies, but some doctors report that in
spraying devised a slogan for themselves—a variation sprayed areas, certain birth defects have become
on a famous “Smokey the Bear” public service mes- more common: anencephaly (absence of all or part of
sage back in the United States. They said, “only you the brain), spina bifida (a malformation of the verte-
can prevent forests.” bral column), and hydrocephaly (overproduction of
The herbicide came in orange-striped drums, so it cerebrospinal fluid, causing a “swelling” of the skull).
was called “agent orange.” It was a mixture of two Immune deficiency diseases and learning disabilities
chemicals: 2,4,5-T and 2,4-D, both of them common- may also be higher in sprayed areas. And if the human
ly used herbicides at the time. As with complex syn- damage is uncertain, the broader ecological impact is
thetic chemicals in general, these herbicides contained a complete mystery.
trace amounts of various unwanted substances that In part because it is so vague, the agent orange
arose as byproducts of production. Among the byprod- legacy illustrates some of the worst aspects of dealing
ucts were some of the chemicals called dioxins. A 1985 with dangerous synthetic chemicals like dioxins. For
report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency purposes of environmental analysis, dioxins are
called dioxins “the most potent carcinogen ever tested grouped in a loose class of potent toxins known as
in laboratory animals.” More recent laboratory work POPs, short for “persistent organic pollutants.” The
has linked dioxins with birth defects, spontaneous full definition of a POP, however, is somewhat more
abortion, and injury to the immune system. When complex than the acronym implies. In addition to
those two herbicides were sold in the United States, being persistent (that is, not liable to break down
they typically contained dioxin concentrations of about rapidly), organic (having a carbon-based molecular
0.05 parts per million. But agent orange had dioxin structure), and polluting (in the sense of being signif-
concentrations up to 1,000 times as high. icantly toxic), POPs have two other properties. They
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26 WORLD•WATCH March/April 2000

are fat soluble and therefore liable to accumulate in and mammals.
living tissue; and they occur in the environment in But there is one way in which the agent orange
forms that allow them to travel great distances. scenario deviates from the norm. Most POPs owe
If you put all five of these properties together, their presence in the environment not to the horrible
you can begin to see the potential for “agent orange exigencies of war, but to ordinary industrial process-
scenarios” in many places. We know that POPs are es—plastic and pesticide manufacturing, leaky trans-
very dangerous, but we can never be sure exactly who formers, waste incineration, and so forth. POPs are
will be injured by them. In the 1970s, for example, a an inevitable byproduct of business as usual. By
group of children developed leukemia (a usually fatal design and by accident, we are continually introduc-
blood disorder involving uncontrolled production of ing new chemicals into the environment without any
white blood cells) in Woburn, a small town in clear notion of what they will eventually do—or
Massachusetts. The leukemia had apparently been whether we may one day find ourselves in a desperate
caused by solvents in the tap water. But why did the scramble to remove them. And among the tens of
disease emerge only in certain children and not in thousands of chemicals that have been in circulation
many others who also presumably ingested the sol- for decades, relatively few have been studied for their
vents? It often takes sophisticated statistical analysis health and environmental effects. Consequently, no
to find any connection at all between contamination one knows exactly how many
and injury—that’s one of the reasons it’s so difficult POPs there are, but it’s like-
to assess the public health risks from POPs. But of ly that many thousands of
course statistics can’t capture the experience of conta- chemicals could qualify
mination: such a threat can seem like an evil lottery. for the term.
The apparent randomness of the threat is exacer- And beyond their
bated by the fact that injury is often delayed or indi- number is the question
rect. Extremely toxic chemicals can bide their time, of their effect: while
then poison their victims in ways that are very hard to POPs are toxic by
see. Benzene, for example, is a common solvent. It’s definition, their
an ingredient in some paints, degreasing products, longterm health
gasoline, and various other shop and industrial com-
pounds. If you’re heavily exposed to it, you stand a
heightened chance of developing cancer—and so may
any children that you have after your exposure. That’s
true even if you’re a man, since fetal exposure isn’t the
only way benzene may poison children: it can reach
right into your chromosomes and injure the genes
your child will inherit. Benzene may do its damage
without ever touching the child directly at all.
POPs are potent ecological poisons as well. And
just as in the human body, their ecological effects
often exhibit a kind of weird indirection. In the
United States in the 1960s, for example, biologists
began to find strong field evidence that the pesticide
DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and similar
chemicals were dangerous. But the evidence didn’t
come from the organisms that had absorbed the pes-
ticides directly. It came from birds of prey—eagles
and falcons—who were suffering widespread repro-
ductive failure. Too few eggs and egg shells so thin
they cracked soon after laying: these were the results
of a type of indirect poisoning known as bioaccumu-
lation. The fat solubility of the pesticides allowed
them to concentrate in the tissues of their hosts as
they moved up the food chain, from insects to
rodents to raptors. Even today, the North American
Great Lakes basin is showing the effects of certain
POPs, like DDT, which have not been used in the
region for decades. Eagle populations are still
depressed; tumors continue to appear in fish, birds,

ILLUSTRATIONS BY MILAN KECMAN

WORLD•WATCH March/April 2000 27
 and environmental impacts are still largely unknown. Currently, 140 nations are negotiating a
Even more complex than evaluating individual POPs treaty to phase out 12 specific POPs (see
is the looming need to understand what kinds of syn- table, page 32). This so-called “dirty
ergistic interactions could be triggered by overlap- dozen” includes nine pesticides, one
ping exposure—to multiple POPs or to POPs com- group of industrial compounds
bined with other chemicals. Multiple contamination known as polychlorinated
is the rule, rather than the exception, but virtually biphenyls (PCBs), and two
nothing is known about it. What we do know is that types of industrial
most of the world’s living things are now steeping in byproducts, the diox-
a diffuse bath of POPs. And that almost certainly ins and their
includes you. No matter where you live, you’re likely
to be contaminated by trace amounts of POPs.
They’re in your food and water; they may be in the
air you breathe; they’re probably on your skin from
time to time—if, for instance, you handle
paints, solvents, or fuels.

RELEASE
A Monsanto Chemical Works factory in Alabama,
circa 1947, made a quantity of PCBs and shipped
them in fluid form to a GE factory in Massachusetts,
which loaded the fluid into electric transformers as
insulation. Transformers were shipped out and
installed on thousands of utility poles and buildings.
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28 WORLD•WATCH March/April 2000

chemical cousins, the furans. The treaty environment, we will have to rethink some of our
is called the “International Legally basic notions of industrial development.
Binding Instrument for Imple-
menting International Action on Every Twenty Seven Seconds
Certain Persistent Organic Pollu-
tants” and as its name suggests, it There are now over 20 million synthetic chemi-
is a laudable but rather timid cals, and that number is increasing by more than 1
effort. Its supporters hope that it million a year. As a rough global average, a new
will eventually serve as a mecha- chemical is synthesized every 27 seconds of the day.
nism to phase out dozens of other Very few of these substances ever go into commercial
POPs. But at least in its present production—something like 99.5 percent remain
form, it doesn’t address the funda- academic curiosities, or rapidly forgotten attempts to
mental problem. If we want to produce a new pesticide, or solvent, or whatever. But
reduce the risks from the vast and every year another 1,000 or so new compounds enter
growing number of synthetic chemi- the chemical economy, either as ingredients in fin-
cals that are being released into the ished products, or as “intermediates”—chemicals
used to make other chemicals. The total number of

DISPERSAL
Over the decades, transformers deteriorated or
were destroyed—some by lightning, others by
demolition. The PCBs leaked into the ground and
were dispersed by runoff into streams or slow seep-
age into aquifers. Some lodged in soil that baked
in the sun, turned to dust, and blew away, eventu-
ally settling throughout the global environment.
synthetics in commerce is probably now somewhere poisoning,” such events are generally episodic rather
between 50,000 and 100,000. But the total number than continual—think of “red tide” algal blooms
of synthetics in the environment is probably far along ocean shorelines, for example. Finally, apart
greater than that, because of the byproducts (like from such mass poisonings, any really powerful poi-
dioxins) unintentionally generated during produc- son produced by a living thing is likely to be “troph-
tion, and because of the breakdown products that ically isolated”—that is, it will tend to affect only
result from the decay of commercial substances. organisms that play certain ecological roles. To be
Chemical innovation on this scale creates an enor- poisoned by a toxic frog, for example, you almost
mous biological risk, despite the fact that many syn- have to be a frog predator. Don’t mess with the frog
thetic chemicals are probably harmless, and many and you’ll be fine. The toxic frog paradigm does not,
naturally-occurring chemicals are extremely danger- however, apply to our current chemical economy,
ous. To understand the risk, it’s useful to have a gen- which is causing broadscale, chronic exposure to
eral sense for what usually happens with natural tox- powerful toxins at virtually every ecological level.
ins. Most really potent natural toxins break down far Not all manufactured chemicals are organic (that
more readily than POPs. Powerful natural toxins also is, carbon-containing); inorganic chemicals play key
tend to be geographically isolated—they aren’t usual- industrial roles as well. Sulfuric acid (H2SO4), for
ly dispersed throughout the environment. And while example, is a key feedstock for much chemical
it’s true that there are some natural forms of “mass production, especially fertilizer. But most

A C C U M U L AT I O N
PCB-containing dust that settled in lakes or rivers
became a nutrient for algae. Water fleas ate the
algae. Small shrimp ate the fleas—each shrimp
eating many fleas and bioaccumulating the PCBs
that lodged in its fat. Small fish called smelt ate the
shrimp, and trout ate many of the smelt—each
stage increasing the concentration of the toxin.
commercially important inorganics, like sulfuric acid, vast and extremely versatile supply of lubricants and
aren’t synthetic in the sense of being completely arti- fuels. Synthesis of completely novel compounds
ficial—they occur in nature. And synthetic or not, began in European laboratories at about the same
only around 100,000 inorganic chemicals are known. time. DDT, for example, dates from 1874, when it
Contrast that with the many millions of organic com- was synthesized by a German chemistry student,
pounds now known—most of them wholly artificial— although its pesticidal properties were not appreciated
and you can begin to get an idea of the stupifying until the 1930s. The first plastics were synthesized
variety in molecular structure that carbon permits. from cellulose (the primary constituent of wood) in
Large-scale industrial production of organic chem- the 1890s. By the end of the century, organic chem-
icals was well underway by the middle of the 19th istry had revolutionized a major industry—the pro-
century. Refineries in both Europe and the United duction of dyes.
States were using coal to produce kerosene—or “coal The key to that development was the realization
oil,” as it was then called. In 1859, western that synthetics could be produced in abundance
Pennsylvania became the site of the world’s first oil directly from oil, instead of from living plant prod-
well. As other oil fields opened in the ucts. With a cheap source of raw material at hand,
United States, Europe, and east Asia, synthetics offered an answer to war-time shortages of
those coal refineries became oil often much more expensive natural products. Vinyl,
refineries, and industry acquired a

and CONSUMPTION
A woman cooks a trout, which has bioaccumulated
the PCBs from hundreds of shrimp and thousands of
fleas. The PCBs are then added to other POPs she
has consumed in cow’s milk, beef, and other foods.
The last step is the baby, whose first food is her
✦
mother’s milk.
31
 Production and Use of the “Dirty Dozen” POPs
Material Date of Introduction Cumulative World Production
(tons)

Aldrin (insecticide) 1949 240,000

Chlordane (insecticide) 1945 70,000

DDT (insecticide) 1942 2.8–3 million

Dieldrin (insecticide) 1948 240,000

Endrin (insecticide and rodenticide) 1951 (3,119 tons in 1977)

Heptachlor (insecticide) 1948 (900 tons used in 1974 in the U.S.)

Hexachlorobenzene (fungicide and 1945 1–2 million

byproduct of pesticide production

Mirex™ (insecticide and flame retardant) 1959 no data

Toxaphene™ (insecticide) 1948 1.33 million

PCBs (liquid insulators in transformers, 1929 1–2 million

hydraulic fluids; ingredients in some paints,
adhesives, and resins. No longer generally
produced in industrialized countries.)

Dioxins (byproducts of organochlorine production 1920s (10.5 tons International Toxic

and incineration, and of wood pulp bleaching) Equivalency of dioxins and
furans combined in 1995)
Furans (same as with dioxins) 1920s

SOURCE: Anne Platt McGinn, “Phasing Out Persistent Organic Pollutants,” in Lester R. Brown et al., State of the World 2000 (New

York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000), page 223, note 13.

for instance, was developed in the 1920s as a rubber wise have existed, at least on a mass scale. Plastic, for
substitute; during World War II, it helped ease the instance, is as fundamental in electronics manufactur-
demand for this essential plant product—tires still ing as microchips. Today, synthetic organic chemicals
had to be made of rubber, but vinyl worked well as a flow through just about every pipe in the chemical
wire insulator. economy (see table, page 35).
In the years following the war, synthetics flooded Not surprisingly, the volume of synthetic organic
one manufacturing process after another, since they chemical production has moved continually upwards
were often much cheaper than such traditional mate- ever since large-scale manufacturing began in the
rials as rubber, wood, metal, glass, and plant fiber. In 1930s. Global production escalated from near zero in
some cases the synthetic displaced a traditional mate- 1930 to an estimated 300 million tons by the late
rial outright, but arguably just as important has been 1980s. In the United States alone, production has
the interest in combining old and new—the metal soared from about 150,000 tons in 1935 to nearly 150
that has a specialty coating to make it more durable, million tons by 1995—almost a thousandfold increase.
the flooring laminate composed of resin and wood Cinema fans may recall the one word of advice given
fiber, and so forth. In ways large and small, synthet- to the confused young man played by Dustin Hoffman
ics have transformed our built environments—and in the 1968 film, “The Graduate”: “Plastics.” The
not simply by replacing things that were made before trend was as clear then as it is now: U.S. production of
out of some other material, but by allowing for the plastics has increased 6-fold since 1960.
creation of products that probably wouldn’t other- The chemical structure of synthetic organics
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32 WORLD•WATCH March/April 2000

varies enormously, of course, but when it comes to sons for toxicity vary. Some organochlorines can
assessing the potential of any particular chemical to “mimic” naturally-occurring chemicals such as hor-
cause trouble, either in the human body or in the mones, thereby upsetting the body’s chemical
environment, one question is of overriding impor- processes; some weaken the immune system; some
tance: does it contain chlorine? Chlorine is highly affect organ development, some promote cancer, and
reactive—that is, it combines very readily with certain so on.) Stability, fat solubility, and chronic toxicity:
other elements and it tends to bind to them very does that begin to sound like a POP? Chlorine cer-
tightly. (The big exception to this rule involves a tainly isn’t required to make a POP. Among the non-
looser association called an ionic bond. For example, chlorinated POPs are various organometals (used, for
sodium chloride, or table salt, is the product of an example, in marine paints) and organobromines
ionic bond between a chlorine and a sodium atom. (used as pesticides and as liquid insulators in electri-
Such a bond is weak enough to allow the two atoms cal equipment). But most known POPs—including
to separate from each other in solution.) Carbon is all of the “dirty dozen”—are organochlorines.
one of the elements that chlorine will bond to, Organochlorine pesticides are the class of products
although in nature such combinations, known as that has produced what are probably the most notori-
organochlorines, are rarely abundant. (There are a ous POPs (see the table on page 32 for some exam-
few exceptions, such as salt marsh emissions of ples). It’s hardly surprising that pesticides are a major
methyl chloride.) But chemists have found that by ingredient in our stew of dangerous chemicals—after
adding chlorine to carbon-based compounds, an all, pesticides are designed to be toxic and they are
even greater molecular variety becomes possible. produced in enormous quantities. Since 1945, global
Chlorine’s ability to snap firmly into place—and to production of pesticides has increased an estimated
anchor all sorts of chemical structures—has made it, 26-fold, from 0.1 million tons to 2.7 million tons,
in the words of W. Joseph Stearns, Director of although growth has slowed in the last 15 years, as
Chlorine Issues for the Dow Chemical Company, health and environmental concerns have inspired an
“the single most important ingredient in modern increasing number of bans, primarily in industrialized
[industrial] chemistry.” countries. These restrictions have reduced the total
Take a sophisticated chemical sector, like that of quantity of pesticides used in the industrialized coun-
the United States, and consider the importance of tries, but the toxicity of particular pesticides has con-
chlorine in it. Chlorine is used to make thousands of tinued to grow. Current pesticide formulations are 10
chemicals—solvents, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, to 100 times as toxic as they were in 1975.
bleaches, and so on. Around 11,000 organochlorines Today, pesticide manufacturers usually want their
are in production. The biggest readily identifiable products to have a high acute toxicity and low chron-
category of these is plastic. Of the more than 10 mil- ic toxicity. They’re looking for compounds that will
lion tons of chlorine that the U.S. industry consumes kill quickly but that don’t haunt the field indefinite-
each year, about one-third goes to produce 14 differ- ly, so organochlorines, with their substantial chronic
ent types of plastic. The most common of those is toxicities, no longer have the universal appeal they
polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is light, strong, and once did. Newer pesticides are less likely to contain
easy to mold. PVC is used to make plastic wrap, shoe chlorine. That’s obviously good, but not good
soles, automobile components, siding, pipes, and enough, for two reasons: non-organochlorine pesti-
medical products, among other things. In less than a cides also sometimes turn out to be POPs, and near-
decade, from 1988 to 1996 (the most recent year for ly all the old products are still with us anyway. They
which figures were available), global production of persist in the environment and most are still used in
PVC expanded by more than 70 percent, from 12.8 developing countries.
million tons to 22 million tons. In the use of prod- A more obscure array of POPs involves a family of
ucts like PVC, you can see how thoroughly we’ve organochlorines that have been used as liquid insula-
enveloped ourselves in organochlorines. tors in electrical equipment, as hydraulic fluids, and
Although many organochlorines are not known as trace additives to plastics, paints, even carbonless
to be dangerous, a substantial number of them do copy paper. These are the polychlorinated biphenyls,
create major risks. In large measure, those risks are or PCBs. For decades, the extreme stability, low flam-
the result of three common characteristics. mability, and low conductivity of POPs made them
Organochlorines are very stable—that’s obviously the standard liquid insulation in transformers—and
part of their manufacturing appeal, but it also means since transformers are a near-ubiquitous part of every
that they don’t go away. They tend to be fat soluble, electrical grid, PCB contamination is now a standard
which means that they can bioaccumulate. And many form of landscape poisoning. In industrialized coun-
of them have substantial chronic toxicity—that is, tries, PCBs were manufactured mostly between the
while exposure over the short term may not be dan- 1920s and the late 1970s; they are still manufactured
gerous, long-term exposure frequently is. (The rea- in Russia and are still in use in many developing
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WORLD•WATCH March/April 2000 33

 countries. Scientists estimate that up to 70 percent of organics is in a near constant state of flux, and the dif-
all PCBs ever manufactured are still in use or in the ficulty of establishing a causal link between exposure
environment, often in landfills where they are gradu- and injury opens the science up to all sorts of tenden-
ally seeping into water tables. The United Nations tious reinterpretation. Anyone familiar with the smok-
Environment Programme (UNEP) recently pub- ing and health debates will recognize this problem.
lished guidelines for helping officials in developing Take dioxins, for example. Chloracne—the severe skin
countries identify PCBs. But given their multiple uses deformity that is the hallmark of dioxin poisoning—
and more than 90 trade names, simply finding them was identified more than a century ago, in 1899. In
is going to be a mind-boggling task—let alone clean- 1998, the UN World Health Organization (WHO)
ing them up. reduced its standard for tolerable daily intake of diox-
But the overwhelming majority of POPs are not in-like substances from 10 picograms per kilogram of
intentionally produced—they’re by-products, like body weight per day to 1-4 picograms. So a person
dioxins and furans, two classes of POPs that result who weighs 68 kilograms (about 150 pounds)
primarily from organochlorine production, the shouldn’t be exposed to more than 4 trillionths of
bleaching of wood pulp, and the incineration of a gram per day. For infants, the safe levels are even
municipal waste. A 1995 UNEP emissions inventory more minuscule. Yet just a couple of years ago, a con-
of 15 countries traced some 7,000 kilograms of diox- sultant to the Chemical Manufacturers Association
in and furan releases to incinerator emissions—that’s announced that “dioxin has not been shown to pose
69 percent of the total releases of those substances in any health threat to the general public.”
these countries. (Seven thousand kilograms may not Even where obfuscation is not an issue, advances
sound like all that much—but bear in mind that these in toxicology tend to create a second testing backlog,
are extremely toxic substances usually produced in since thousands of previously-screened chemicals may
trace quantities.) There are 210 known dioxins and need to be re-evaluated. In 1996, for example, the
furans. And among the byproducts of organochlorine United States launched a major pesticide re-evalua-
production and use, it’s almost certain that many tion program, in the light of new research on how
more thousands of POPs remain to be discovered. these chemicals can affect children, whose high
metabolism and rapid rate of physical development
Do we really need it? make them more vulnerable to certain kinds of tox-
ins. Thus far, screening has been completed on less
Over the past three decades or so, attempts to than a quarter of U.S. pesticide “registrations.” (The
regulate the chemical industry in the industrialized United States regulates pesticides by designating spe-
world have grown to a phenomenal degree. In the cific uses permitted for each chemical; each such use
United States, for example, the effort now involves is known as a registration.)
four federal agencies on a regular basis, and at least The shifting horizon of toxicology can call into
seven major pieces of federal legislation, which question even widely accepted synthetics. The plasti-
address pesticides, pollution, and attempt to promote cizers known as phthalates, for example, are believed
cleaner industries. Any new synthetic produced in to be among the most common industrial com-
Europe or the United States is now subject to some pounds in the environment. Yet recent laboratory
degree of toxicity testing before it can be injected research in animals has linked phthalates to damage to
into commerce. the liver, kidney, and testicles, as well as to miscar-
But despite this gargantuan bureaucratic effort, riage, birth defects, and reduced fertility. Incineration
the current regulatory approach is no match for the of phthalates produces dioxins. Phthalates occur in
threat. In the first place, most of the toxicity testing everything from construction materials to children’s
is done by the companies themselves—a practice that teething rings. And among the 1,000 new chemicals
invites obvious conflicts of interest. Nor do current that will enter the economy this year, who knows how
efforts offer a realistic possibility of dealing with the many more such discoveries will eventually be made?
testing backlog. Tens of thousands of chemicals In its current form, the chemical sector is clearly
entered commerce in the decades before testing was at odds with our collective obligation to maintain
required—and we still have no clear notion of the human and environmental health. What is needed is
risks most of them pose. Fewer than 20 percent of fundamental reform—a change that goes far deeper
the chemicals in commerce have been adequately than conventional regulation. That reform could
evaluated for toxicity, according to a 1984 National start with a very simple but revolutionary idea: it’s
Academy of Sciences report. (It’s perhaps a reflection wise to avoid unnecessary risk. This is the kernel of
of the magnitude of the problem that this 16-year- one of the environmental movement’s core concepts:
old report should still be widely cited.) the precautionary principle. The principle states that
And then there is our uncertainty over what we when any action is contemplated that could affect the
ought to be testing for. The toxicology of synthetic environment, those who advocate the action should
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34 WORLD•WATCH March/April 2000

show that the risks are either negligible, or that they
are decisively outweighed by the benefits. What Does the Chemical
The principle reverses the usual burden of proof.
In most environmental controversies today, that bur- Industry Produce?
den effectively rests with those who argue against an Some Major Product Categories
action: they must usually persuade the public or pol-
icy makers that the benefits are outweighed by the
risks. But of course, we rarely understand the risks Tars and primary petroleum derivatives
until after the fact—and maybe not even then. That’s (used to make asphalt, fuels, lubricants, and
the problem the principle is meant to address; it’s a many of the products listed below)
kind of insurance policy against our own ignorance.
Plastics (used in—you name it)
In terms of our chemical use, a reasonable applica-
tion of the precautionary principle would require us to Resins (used, for example, in adhesives,
assume that in certain chemical classes—organochlo- protective coatings, and paints)
rines, for example—any new compound is dangerous.
The next step would be to ask: do we really need it? Intermediates (chemicals used to produce
This kind of inquiry would tend to foster a different other chemicals)
kind of inventiveness, both within the chemical indus-
Solvents (liquids used to keep other materials
try and within society as a whole. The emphasis would
in solution, as for example, in paints and
tend to shift from inventing new chemicals, to invent-
cleaning compounds)
ing new uses for chemicals thought to be reasonably
safe, and to inventing new procedures that may not be Surfactants (“surface-active agents” used in
dependent on chemicals at all. Fewer new chemicals products like detergents to promote an interac-
would come into commerce; a growing number of tion between the product and the material to
established ones would come out. which it is applied)
There is already a strong precedent for this kind
of chemical “stand down” in the impending ban of Elastomers (synthetic rubbers such as
chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), the now-notorious neoprene)
class of chemicals once almost universally used as
Rubber-processing chemicals
refrigerants and spray-can propellents. CFCs were
found to be weakening the stratospheric ozone layer, Plasticizers (used in plastics to confer
which shields the Earth’s surface from harmful ultra- flexibility)
violet radiation. Under the Montreal Protocol of
1987, CFCs are being phased out in favor of other Pesticides
compounds that are less harmful to the ozone layer.
Pharmaceuticals
In many parts of the chemical economy, you can see
the potential for similar developments. Consider Flavors and perfumes (manufacturers
three examples. commonly rely on synthetics to make their
products taste and smell the way they want)
Pesticides: the phase-out may already have begun
Dyes and pigments (everything from the
Pesticides are the mainstay of monoculture farming. paint on your car, to the color of your clothes,
They are the mechanism that allows for vast expanses to the food you eat)
of pure corn, cotton, or soybeans—a highly unnatur-
al condition that is very vulnerable to infestation. But
pesticides are also expensive and dangerous, and more careful stewardship of the soil and more diverse
these liabilities underlie the growing boom in organ- plantings, which tend to have fewer pest problems
ic agriculture. In the industrialized countries, organ- than conventional monocultures. Even though the
ic production (which uses no synthetic pesticides) is yield of a particular crop may be lower than in con-
the strongest market within the agricultural sector. In ventional agriculture, an organic farm can do just as
the United States, the organic market has been grow- well in terms of total productivity (that is, in terms of
ing at a rate of 20 percent per year since 1989. Some all the crops coming off a unit of land) and in terms
35 percent of U.S. consumers look for the organic of financial return—and that’s before you factor in
label at least part of the time. In Europe, one-third of the environmental benefits.
the continent’s farmland is expected to be in organic A thornier set of pesticide problems involves pub-
production by the end of this decade. Organic and lic health. DDT may be eliminated by the new treaty
other forms of low-pesticide farming usually involve as an agricultural pesticide, but it’s still key to malar-
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WORLD•WATCH March/April 2000 35

 ia control in many parts of the tropics. Malaria kills this type of pollution is now almost wholly unneces-
2.7 million people every year—a death toll greater sary—and the paper you’re looking at right now
than that of AIDS. In much of sub-Saharan Africa proves it. (WORLD WATCH is printed on paper that is
and tropical Asia, control of the mosquitoes that bleached without any chlorine or chlorine-based
carry the disease is a life-and-death issue, and that has compounds, although unfortunately, that is not yet
frequently involved the broadscale spraying of DDT. true of our cover stock.) Thus far, only 6 percent of
But even here, more careful targetting of the mos- global bleached pulp production is “totally chlorine
quitoes would permit enormous reductions in pesti- free,” but that includes more than a quarter of
cide use—and might even improve malaria control. Scandinavian production, so the economic viability of
Researchers in Africa, for example, have demonstrat- the process is not in question. Some 54 percent of
ed that bednets soaked in alternative, less-toxic insec- global bleached pulp production is now “elementally
ticides can reduce malaria transmission by 30 to 60 chlorine free”—meaning that a chlorine bleach was
percent and childhood mortality by up to 30 percent. used, but at least it wasn’t raw chlorine. (Our cover
And bednets are relatively cheap: a net plus a year’s stock falls in this category.) It’s true that converting
supply of insecticide costs about $11. In 1993, WHO a mill to chlorine-free production is expensive, but
dropped its blanket spraying recommendation for the picture is very different when you start from
DDT, in favor of targeted spraying of the insecticide scratch. It’s actually cheaper to build a chlorine-free
indoors only. mill than a conventional one.
At least some of the more dangerous “intermedi-
PVC: taking the POPs out of the products ates” within the industry are probably susceptible to
replacement as well. Benzene, for example, is a major
The incineration of solid waste is a primary generator feedstock chemical in the production of a wide range
of dioxins and furans. While better incineration pro- of materials—for example, dyes, film developing
cedures can greatly reduce this kind of contamination, agents, solvents, and nylon. For some applications,
the single most effective way to lower dioxin output is however, it may be possible to replace benzene with
to get as much chlorine as possible out of the waste the simple blood sugar, glucose. That may sound like
stream. PVC is the source of an estimated 80 percent a bizarre substitution, but it’s the ring structure of
of the chlorine that flows into municipal waste incin- both molecules that allows for a degree of inter-
erators and nearly all the chlorine in medical waste changeability. Glucose is cheaper to make than ben-
incinerators (these are among the most important sec- zene (6 versus 13 cents per pound) and for all practi-
ond-rank dioxin emitters, after the municipal inciner- cal purposes, it’s harmless. As a feedstock, however,
ators). A top priority for the new chemical economy the processes for handling glucose are more expen-
should therefore be the elimination of PVC, which is sive than the better-established processes for ben-
45 percent chlorine by weight, in favor of low-chlo- zene, but these costs don’t take into account emis-
rine or chlorine-free materials. Initially, the substitutes sions control costs for benzene. In any case, the costs
are liable to be more expensive than PVC, but even would presumably decline if the use of glucose as a
incipient demand could rapidly generate an economy feedstock became more common. Such adjustments
of scale. The market prospects have already led the deep within the industrial machinery may seem rather
Exxon Corporation, one of the world’s largest PVC obscure, but they could be major news: the possibil-
producers, to begin planning a shift from PVC to ity of substituting an innocuous substance for an
chlorine-free polyolefin plastics. extremely dangerous one suggests that there may be
all sorts of hidden opportunities for re-engineering
Bleaching and benzene: removing POPs from the chemical sector.
industrial processes
If such re-engineering is to succeed, it will have to
POPs often haunt industrial processes to a far greater proceed from a much broader understanding of what
degree than they contaminate the products them- we’re doing when we make and use synthetic chemi-
selves. Thus, for example, paper is not ordinarily a cals. Whether we intend it this way or not, chemical
source of organochlorine contamination while it’s manufacturing is as much an ecological process as it
being used. But paper production certainly is, and is an economic or industrial one. Any industry exec-
paper disposal can be as well, because the huge vol- utive knows that a chemical plant has to make some
ume of paper converging on an incinerator may allow sort of economic sense. The POPs legacy is telling us
trace contaminants to concentrate. Both forms of that it had better make environmental sense as well.
contamination are caused by the use of chlorine
bleaches to whiten woodpulp. Bleaching can produce Anne Platt McGinn is a senior researcher at the
up to 35 tons of organochlorines per day per mill. Yet Worldwatch Institute.
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36 WORLD•WATCH March/April 2000