Emerging contaminants: Eco-political institutional failure, challenges and initiatives

Background/Question/Methods . Simply speaking, industry is producing chemicals at a faster rate than society can evaluate and regulate to protect ecosystems, food webs, and human health, giving rise to the terms “Emerging Contaminants” and “Chemicals of Emerging Concern (EC/CECs).” There is a chemical gold rush to patent and register chemicals, but not to adequately evaluate these chemicals for toxicity, persistence, and exposure. Chemicals approved in the past for incidental use are grandfathered and permitted to switch to other uses and produced on a scale to become environmentally ubiquitous. Animal species that survived climate change in the past, may not be able to withstand the additional stressors of toxic chemicals, jeopardizing fragile ecosystems and biodiversity. There are over 150,000 substances in commerce today, but only 1,000 are regularly subject to monitoring. Unintentionally produced toxics in consumer products and breakdown products (e.g. micro-plastics) are dispersing and accumulating in the environment and human beings at unforeseen scales. The UN Economic Commission of Europe (UNECE) successfully established the regional Convention for Long Range Transport of Air Pollutants (CLRTAP) to combat acid rain and banned the dirty dozen (e.g. DDT, Dioxin, PCB). The global Persistent Organic Pollutant (POPs) UN Stockholm Convention, followed, but neither can keep up with the sheer numbers of EC/CECs. Ecotoxicology scientists are investigating contamination one chemical or class at a time in specific locales of exposure, but there is a dearth of effort to investigate the phenomenon of production and governance (Economic Political Ecology) of EC/CECs. We are in the situation of institutional political and economic system failure.

Results/Conclusions . This poster outlines the political economy systemic and regulatory challenges and offers some informed suggestions for collaborative responses and initiatives on the local, regional and international levels. Case studies of environmental justice and bottom-up initiatives are critically evaluated for insights on the barriers and opportunities to scale up: Crowdsourcing (GoodAnthropocenes.net & EJAtlas.org); state government staff (e.g. Minnesota Pollution Control Agency); social, physical and life science collaborations (e.g. UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, Arctic Monitoring Assessment Program [AMAP] Chemicals of Emerging Arctic Concern*). The promise and shortfalls of the circular economy and the UN Sustainable Development Goals are presented. The presentation concludes with the role higher education can take teaching sustainability core learning competencies, sustainability across the curriculum, and engaging in community, nonprofit and government partnerships.
*The poster presenter was an AMAP expert working group co-author of “Chemicals of Emerging Arctic Concern.”