POPs build up through the food chain and can reach concentrations in wildlife and humans thousands of times higher than in the surrounding air, water and soil. Bird with a crossed bill, as a result of exposure to POPs. All well-known POPs are chlorinated compounds. Some Indians have the dubious distinction of carrying among the highest levels of DDT and HCH in their bodies. The Greenpeace report found, in all the countries studied, that citizens bear the environmental cost of POPs usage, manufacture or storage.
Citizens are also likely to bear the cost of eventual disposal.
Corporations, on the other hand, lack accountability in this area. Greenpeace investigators found obsolete pesticide stockpiles in Pakistan and Nepal containing chemicals from well-known chemical corporations like Hoechst, Bayer, Shell, ICI, Velsicol, Dow, Rhone Poulenc and DuPont. India, because of the sheer size of its manufacturing industry, should have been a major player in the international negotiations to eliminate POPs, Greenpeace said. POPs affect reproductive systems. In a recent study of beluga whales in the St. Lawrence Seaway, mammary gland lesions that could have hindered breast feeding were discovered in 36 percent of the dead females.