India inks Stockholm Convention

NEW DELHI: India has signed the Stockholm Convention aimed at phasing out the production and emission of one dozen persistent organic pollutants (POPs) including nine pesticides and three industrial chemical emissions.
As an immediate fall-out the country would be granted $50,000 from the Global Environment Fund (GEF) to make a preliminary assessment and chart out a plan to tackle POPs. This would be carried out by UNIDO and would be ready in six months.
POPs are organic compounds that resist photolytic, chemical and biological degradation.
They have low water solubility and high lipid solubility, leading to bio-accumulation in fatty tissues. Being semi-volatile, they travel long distances before deposition — which is why they are present everywhere, even in regions where they have never been used.