What are POPs

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are organic chemical substances, that is, they are carbon-based. They possess a particular combination of physical and chemical properties such that, once released into the environment, they:

• remain intact for exceptionally long periods of time (many years);
• become widely distributed throughout the environment as a result of natural processes involving soil, water and, most notably, air;

• accumulate in the living organisms including humans, and are found at higher concentrations at higher levels in the food chain; and
• are toxic to both humans and wildlife.

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants

The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from chemicals that remain intact in the environment for long periods, become widely distributed geographically, accumulate in the fatty tissue of humans and wildlife, and have harmful impacts on human health or on the environment.

Exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) can lead to serious health effects including certain cancers, birth defects, dysfunctional immune and reproductive systems, greater susceptibility to disease and damages to the central and peripheral nervous systems.

In response to this global problem, the Stockholm Convention, which was adopted in 2001 and entered into force in 2004, requires its parties to take measures to eliminate or reduce the release of POPs into the environment.

Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) (Text and Annexes)

National Implementation Plan for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in Taiwan

In order to prevent persistent organic pollutants (POPs) from causing harm to the environment, the United Nations established the "Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants" (referred to as the Convention). According to Article 7 of the Convention, to implement the normative matters, parties shall develop a National Implementation Plan (NIP) and submit it to the Conference of the Parties for approval. Although our country is not a party to the Convention, to express that our country's current policies are in line with the various control schedules and operational matters of the Convention, and to demonstrate the direction and positive actions of our country's POPs control at the same time, our country's "National Implementation Plan for the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants" (Approved for the first time in 97.7.3) is specially formulated as a specific basis for domestic promotion. In recent years, our country has also gradually completed the revision of the implementation plan with the resolution of adding chemical substances to the Convention to conform to the international control trend.

The members and duties of the implementation of the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in Taiwan