**6. World experiences in POPs monitoring and management**

In recent years, the potential risks of POPs were considered seriously throughout the world. As such, regulatory control and measures were proposed to protect human health, the ecosystem, and the environment. According to report of Porta et al. [15], few countries including USA, Germany, and Arctic had established nationwide surveillance programs of human concentrations of POPs, while other countries have conducted population-wide studies on the distribution and concentrations of POPs.

#### **6.1. United States**

The United States has taken several actions to control and reduce the emission of POPs. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) controls and manages the release of dioxins and furans to air, water, and soil by the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. According to the- 1990 Clean Air Act, the US EPA identifies the major industrial sources of toxic air emission- and sets regulations using a technology-based or performance-based approach to reduce toxic emissions. Industries must be scaled up to achieve the maximum control of hazardous air pollutants, including dioxins and furans [16]. In addition, the act demanded EPA to analyze the remaining risks and decide whether control measures have to be tightened. Apart dioxins management using clean air act, the Clean Water Act controls and manages the release of dioxins- to water through a combination of risk-based and technology-based tools [17]. Moreover, EPA Superfund and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act Corrective Action programs were also helping to clean up the dioxin-contaminated land [18]. Several conventions and commissions were established on a regional basis to control and address regional environmental concerns.

Various activities have been performed by different sectoral offices to reduce the pollution and- its effect on human health. The CDC [19] indicated that National Report on Human Exposure to

Environmental Chemicals (NRHEEC) in the United States has given an opportunity for ongoing assessment of the POPs exposure level of the U.S. population. This assessment program has linked POPs to the National Health Nutrition Survey (NHANES) and determined the concentration of some POPs in the blood and urine of the general population from 50 states. The program assessed POPs increased from 27in 2001 to 148 by 2005. POPs that were assessed in- the program included the pesticide POPs (aldrin, chlordane, DDD, DDE, DDT, dieldrin, endrin, heptachlor, mirex, toxaphene, etc), brominated compounds (PBDEs, polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), etc), and other additional chemicals in 2005. Furthermore, fluorinated POPs, such as- PFOA, PFOS, and its salts, were also found under the candidate chemicals in priority groups [19]. Ecotoxicology database (ECOTOX) program was also setup by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) to study the human exposure. The aim of the program was to consolidate all toxicity data for aquatic and terrestrial organisms from peer-reviewed literature [20]. Currently, it is funded and being managed by the U.S. Department of Defense's Strategic Environmental Research and Development Programme (SERDP) and the U.S.-EPA's Office- of Research and Development (ORD) and the National Health and Environmental Effects- Research Laboratory's (NHEERL's) Mid-Continent Ecology Division [20]. The US EPA finally- made the database to be publicly available by the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) program to track the emission levels and trends for toxic chemicals, including dioxins and furans, from major industries, point sources, stationary sources, and mobile sources [16].

### **6.2. Germany**

In Germany, Environmental Survey (GerES) of POPs officially started in 1985. Serious four GerESs were conducted in the period of 1985–1986 (GerES I), 1990–1992 (GerES II), 1998 (GerES III), and 2003–2006 (GerES IV), respectively [21]. Blood and urine from the general population of ages between 25 and 69 were analyzed. In GerES II and GerES IV reports, addition subsamples were done for children aged between 6 and 14years and another aged between 3 and 14years [22].
