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Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)

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What are Persistent Organic Pollutants?

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) are organic chemical substances that pose a risk to human health and the environment due to their:

  • persistence in the environment

  • bioaccumulation through the food chain

  • long-range environmental transport across a wide geographical area

POPs move across international boundaries, far from their sources, and there is worldwide concern at their continued release.

The properties and characteristics of POPs have led them to be used widely in manufacturing, and they can be found in a variety of products and goods.

SEPA guidance on the management of Persistent Organic Pollutants

Scientific reports and studies have highlighted the presence of POPs in specific waste streams or waste types. We have published guidance to support wasteholders when classifying and assessing POPs-contaminated waste and help ensure they are managed in an appropriate manner:

Regulating Persistent Organic Pollutants

International regulation

International action has been taken to protect the environment from POPs, in the form of two agreements:

The UK POPs Regulations

In the UK, The Persistent Organic Pollutants Regulations 2007 and subsequent amendments implement the requirements of the Stockholm Convention and Regulation (EC) No 850/2004 (as amended, commonly referred to as the ‘EU POPS Regulations’).

The UK POPs Regulations reflect the key objectives of both the Aarhus Protocol and the Stockholm Convention, namely, to protect human health and the environment from POPs by:

  • prohibiting, phasing out as soon as possible, or restricting the production, placing on the market and use of substances subject to the Protocol or the Convention (i.e. substances detailed on the list of POPs)

  • minimising, with a view to eliminating where feasible as soon as possible, releases of such substances

  • establishing provisions regarding waste consisting of, containing or contaminated by these substances (Article 1 of the Regulation)

The UK Regulations set out the offences for not complying, the penalties attached to these offences, and the appeals procedure.

Read more about the principal requirements of the UK POPs regulations. 

Who is affected by the Regulations?

The Regulations impact:

  • any person producing or receiving waste containing any of the substances specified in Annex IV of the European POPs Regulations above the relevant threshold

  • any holder of a stockpile of any substance listed in Annex I or II of the European POPs Regulations

  • any person applying for a permit, or a significant modification to a permit under the PPC Regulations, using processes that release chemicals listed in Annex III of the European POPs Regulations

  • any person producing, placing on the market or using any substance listed in Annex I or Annex II of the European POPs Regulation

What substances are classed as Persistent Organic Pollutants?

Annexes I to III to the EU POPS Regulation list the substances contained in the Aarhus Protocol and the Stockholm Convention, and these are the substances subject to the controls of the EU POPs Regulations and consequently the UK POPs Regulations. Unless otherwise specified, these substances are referred to as being the ‘list of POPs’.

These can be categorised broadly into the following three categories:

  • pesticides – e.g. DDT, Aldrin and Mirex

  • industrial chemicals – e.g. polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), short-chained chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) and UV-328

  • unintentional by-products of combustion and some industrial/non-industrial processes – e.g. polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and polychlorinated dibenzofurans

Further information