Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are chemicals that resist environmental degradation and cause deleterious effects on the environment and human wellbeing. Once released into the environment they can travel long distances and persist for longer duration. This book highlights the complex area of POPs in simple language and deals with the fundamentals of the chemicals, their sources, and impacts on human health. The book also unfolds several other aspects like new and advanced analytical detection methods, gaps in management, effectiveness of the Stockholm convention, and the role of the global monitoring plan on POPs for crucial and holistic understanding about POPs. It also investigates how to minimize the impact of POPs and the major gaps and challenges in sound management of POPs. With its comprehensive approach, this book is an indispensable source of knowledge for those studying and working to mitigate the effect of POPs in the environment.

The shift towards being as environmentally-friendly as possible has resulted in the need for this important reference on the topic of designing safer chemicals. Edited by the leading international experts in the field, this volume covers such topics as toxicity, reducing hazards and biochemical pesticides. An essential resource for anyone wishing to gain an understanding of the world of green chemistry, as well as for chemists, environmental agencies and chemical engineers.

First Published in 2017. In this volume, the editor collected articles that primarily appeared in the “Scientific Solutions” section of New Solutions, A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy. The articles in the book are grouped into three general categories, starting with Critical Science. These articles are primarily critiques of “how science is done” or how science is incorporated into public health policy in the United States and elsewhere. The second category is what I have called Precautionary Science. These articles, such as the ones by Dement on asbestos and Solomon, and colleagues on the risks of manganese, essentially call for precautionary regulations to reduce exposures where there is substantial but, in the eyes of some, less than definitive scientific knowledge. The final category is Solutions Science. In some ways, this represents the current stage of precautionary science, where we have begun to look at larger societal issues and have moved beyond traditional scientific approaches and critiques.

Chemicals are an essential part of everyday life and all too-often taken for granted, yet often portrayed negatively in the media. Concern over the deleterious effects of chemicals to the environment and human health have prompted governments in the developed world to establish screening programmes such as REACH and HPV Challenge to identify chemicals presenting the greatest degree of risk to health and the environment. While such programmes identify chemicals with the greatest risk, there is no ranking system for alternative chemicals, which while being potentially less harmful, still carry a degree of risk. This volume of the Issues in Environmental Science and Technology series investigates how the alternatives can be assessed and their risk determined. With contributions from experts across the globe, this volume addresses some of the key concepts behind risk assessment of alternative chemicals. Some of the current protocols adopted are discussed, and several chapters explore the topic in the context of industry, making this book essential reading for industrialists as well as academics, postgraduate students and policy makers.

This book introduces the concept of soil security and its five dimensions: Capability, Capital, Condition, Connectivity and Codification. These five dimensions make it possible to understand soil's role in delivering ecosystem services and to quantify soil resource by measuring, mapping, modeling and managing it. Each dimension refers to a specific aspect: contribution to global challenges (Capability), value of the soil (Capital), current state of the soil (Condition), how people are connected to the soil (Connectivity) and development of good policy (Codification). This book considers soil security as an integral part of meeting the ongoing challenge to maintain human health and secure our planet's sustainability. The concept of soil security helps to achieve the need to maintain and improve the world’s soil for the purpose of producing food, fiber and freshwater, and contributing to energy and climate sustainability. At the same time it helps to maintain biodiversity and protects ecosystem goods and services.