The role of emission inventories is key to understanding and controlling the global distribution of POPs such as PCBs, yet their importance and the challenges putting them together is often overlooked. One of the first comprehensive estimates of historical global production for PCBs suggested that over 1.3 million tonnes of were manufactured and that 97% of PCB use occurred in the Northern Hemisphere. A follow-up study using a dynamic mass balance model approach estimated the resulting historical emission profile over a 70-year period. Additional updates have reduced uncertainty, increased future projections and taken into account global movements of waste such as discarded electrical products. These studies provided vital data for the global assessment of PCB transport and fate and have guided our understanding of what has become one of the most well characterised global contaminants. Models such as BETR-Global have utilised such estimates to provide valuable insights into dominant transport and fate processes, important sinks and long-term trends. The discussion of the dominance of primary and secondary sources can only really be addressed using such studies. Recent developments in China, which has experienced limited historical production and use of PCBs, identified a range of on-going and increasingly important unintentionally produced PCBs. This presentation will discuss the importance of the development of reliable emission inventories and their constant assessment and revision using global models and measurement datasets to understand the fate and effects of POPs. Focus may have shifted to other important chemical groups such as PFAS, but the questions and challenges remain the same.

Importance of source inventories for our understanding of the global distribution of POPs

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.