A review on emerging persistent organic pollutants: Current scenario in Pakistan

During the last few years, a new drift on screening of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) present in the environment of Pakistan has been observed. However, across the globe a number of reports have been devoted to the screening levels, distribution, and risk assessment and on the emission of POPs. In the case of Pakistan, the knowledge achieved and understanding of POPs contamination in the environmental compartments are still limited. Recently published literature has been a key to explore the mystery of new emerging POPs from the environment of the country. In this review, an effort was made to summarize the results of recently published reports on POPs (PCNs, PBDEs, DPs, and PCBs) from biotic and abiotic environments of Pakistan. This review also presents the available data published to date for organochlorines. The results of previously reported studies reflected that newly emerging POPs were influenced by the industrial and urban fractions and were in line with the distribution pattern of other regions of the world. These results revealed that urgent attention must be paid to these new emerging POPs, as they are reported to be present in considerable concentrations. Such detected concentrations of these banned pollutants should be checked/screened by scientific authorities to avoid adverse health risks to humans and animals.