How Chemical Pollutants Persist in the Environment
October 26, 2008 by Tommy Linsley
Filed under Sustainable Development
Just because the production of a given pollutant is halted due to environmental
or health concerns doesn’t mean that it’s going anywhere, any time soon. Consider
DDT. The production of this pesticide and highly reactive toxin is still being found
in soils and groundwater, decades after it was applied. In fact, the breakdown chemical
DDE can still be found in very high levels in both groundwater supplies and the bodies
of people and animals who were exposed many years previously.
These chemicals persist for several reasons. For starters, they bind to lipids, or fatty
tissues, that animals use to store energy for later use. Fat cells are not created or
destroyed over the life of an organism – they simply fill up or shrink down. Also, many
of the original or breakdown chemicals have an affinity for soils. They remain tightly
bound to soil particles and minerals until something “knocks” them loose.
Yes, this is another area where sustainable development initiatives become challenging.
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