Pollution has become a major problem throughout the world. It comes in many forms, such as air pollution, noise pollution, water pollution, and many others. Chemical pollution is unique to the 20th century. New "super chemicals" have been in use by the general public since as early as World War II. The harmful effects of these chemicals have been evident since as early as the 1950's, when scientists began to notice strange occurrences happening around the world. .
Persistent Organic Pollutants, or POP's, are synthetic chemicals that are found everywhere and in everything in some form, and cannot be broken down quickly. They are found in pesticides mainly, which include insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, and rodenticides. They are also found in dish detergent, milk jugs, baby's teething rings, the lining of tin cans, computers, Tupperware, power lines, clothes, insulation, plastic wrap, Barbie dolls, cars, soda bottles, in milk, on our fruits and vegetables and even in our bodies at birth. .
The dirty dozen is a term used to categorize the 12 most dangerous chemicals. It consists of a group of POP's, including DDT, Aldrin, Dieldrin, Endrin, Chlordane, Heptachlor, Hexachlorobenzene, Mirex, Toxaphene, Dioxins, Furans, and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB's). The United States, along with the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, and 119 other countries, have banned the use of eight POP"s in the dirty dozen.1 Other countries, mostly underprivileged countries, still use many of them. For example, the insecticide DDT (dichloro-diphenyltrichloroethane) is still in use in Africa because experts argue that it is the best way to prevent malaria.2.
Many people do not look past the good qualities of these chemicals to the harmful long-term effects. There are, in fact, many good uses for them. If DDT had not been used to control the spread of malaria, or to control the spread of typhus during WWII, many people would have died from disease.