Anne Platt McGinn
The 2001 signing of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), which holds countries accountable for the regulation of 10 of the most hazardous intentionally produced pollutants, was one of the key environmental achievements in the decade since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio.
The impact of toxic chemicals is already widespread-the average person today carries levels of lead that are 500-1,000 times higher than our pre-industrial ancestors, and worldwide some 300-500 million tons of hazardous wastes are generated each year.
Post-Stockholm, the global community faces a dual challenge: reforming an enormous sector of the industrial economy while also taking action on the toxic materials that exist now either as waste or as commodities circulating in the economy.
World Summit priorities: Phasing out leaded gasoline; ratifying the three major global toxics treaties (Stockholm, Basel, and Rotterdam); taxing emissions of metals and toxic byproducts from industrial sources; eliminating persistent compounds in dissipative uses, such as farming and cleaning; and funding research on safer materials and environmentally sound methods of waste disposal.