On Oct. 23, a new international treaty–the Protocol on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)–went into effect, although the United States hasn’t signed on. Brokered under the aegis of the United Nations, the POPs treaty calls for reduction or elimination of toxic chemicals that are long-lived and have the propensity to travel long distances.
When first drafted in 2000, this treaty looked to curb what many scientists referred to as the dirty dozen: dioxins, furans, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and the pesticides aldrin, chlordane, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, hexachlorobenzene, mirex, and toxaphene (SN: 12/16/00, p.