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WHAT ARE PERSISTENT POISONS?

What are persistent poisons? Persistent poisons are toxic materials that, when introduced into the environment and water cycle, stay there for up to thousands of years. They are categorized into two different groups: Heavy Metals, and Organochlorines. Heavy metals include cadmium, mercury, copper, arsenic, and lead. Organochlorines are sort of like hydrocarbons, but have chlorine in them. They are invented by people, and most of them eventually end up in the environment and water cycle. Once in the environment, they are called Persistent Organic Pollutants (POP’s). Twelve particular POP’s concern scientists because they have impacted the environment greatly in the past decade. Two of them are PolyChlorinated Biphenyls (PCB’s), which are industrial substances. Six of them are pesticides that can kill weeds, fungi, and insects. The other two are dioxins and furans. They are byproducts from burning materials, and are dumped into the water cycle and environment.

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