Title | Persistent toxic substances in India |
Publication Type | Book Chapter |
Year of Publication | 2007 |
Authors | Subramanian, Annamalai, Shinsuke Tanabe, and Shinsuke Tanabe An Li |
Book Title | Developments in Environmental Science |
Volume | 7 |
Number of Volumes | 13 |
Pagination | 433-485 |
Publisher | Elsevier |
ISBN Number | 1474-8177 |
Abstract | Over the past few decades there has been a steady increase in the use of many pesticides for agricultural and disease control purposes in developing countries including India. Apart from this, India is now becoming an industrially developed nation, compelling it to use several other man-made chemicals for its ongoing industrial development. In spite of the fact that India has promulgated several laws for the control of such chemicals, in practice, there has been little control over their production and usage. As a result, there has been widespread contamination of the Indian environment and biota, including human, by all these chemicals. Most recent studies have shown that, in contrary to the popular belief that the developed nations are the prime sources of the highly toxic chemicals such as PCDDs/DFs, India is also contributing such chemicals to the global environment in considerable quantities. Many popular articles and scientific publications have shown a grim situation in several sectors of human life in India with regard to xenobiotic chemical contamination. Our group at the Center for Marine Environmental Studies (CMES), Ehime University has been carrying-out monitoring and toxicological studies of many of those chemicals in India for the past three decades. Apart from our works, sizable literature is available on the status of contamination of persistent toxic substances (PTS) such as DDTs, PCBs, PCDDs/DFs, PBDEs, HBCDs, OTs, etc. Viewing from a global pollution point of view, a detailed review of the available information on PTS pollution in India is necessary for planning and executing control measures to restrain their expansion on a wide scale. With this view in mind, this review provides information on the history of usage of PTS in India, their occurrence in the aquatic and terrestrial environment and in the flora and fauna. Finally the review provides a brief account of the laws governing the manufacture and usage and the management practices of those chemicals. |
URL | http://www.sciencedirect.com.libproxy.rpi.edu/science/article/B7W55-4PGGMMR-D/2/1b9994dd7727977fb5537ae12ffa333f |
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