Published as delegates gathered in Montreal to frame a global treaty on persistent organic pollutants (POPs), the Unseen Poisons report reveals that human beings are contaminated routinely by a range of POPs associated with cancers, immune deficiency and reproductive abnormality. In India and Zimbabwe, for example, the concentration of mosquito controller DDT in mothers' milk exceeds the WHO infant standard by a factor of more than six.

Global action to combat POPs will focus initially on twelve pollutants of special concern including dioxins and DDT. A POPs tour by Greenpeace to heighten awareness of the poisons is structured around two long-standing campaign precepts: that POPs represent a global problem, and that the only solution to such a problem is a global commitment to elimination at source. Launched in Argentina in 1998, the tour is set to travel the world.

Elimination at source, meanwhile, carries a particular resonance in the Doñana region of Spain where an estimated five million cubic metres of spilled waste containing heavy metals from the Los Frailes mine operated by Boliden Apirsa will continue to contaminate the environment for years to come. Within hours, Greenpeace was conducting impact assessments of a disaster on the doorstep of one of Europe's most prized ecosystems.

Targeting the toys The PVC industry claims that vinyl toys have been enjoyed safely by children around the world for forty years. Yet PVC contains toxic additives in the form of phthalate softeners used to render the brittle plastic pliable. Because these additives are not bound chemically to the material, they can leach out over time. When a child chews or bites on a toy, the action increases the rate at which harmful phthalates leach out. Hazards demonstrated in rats include damage to the liver and kidneys, and cancers.

"In keeping with our corporate goal of adopting sustainable business practices, we will not continue to support the production and use of PVC"
Q&A briefing, Nike

The Greenpeace Play Safe campaign which targets soft PVC toys is part of a wider effort to spotlight dangers associated with the manufacture, use and disposal of PVC in general. Greenpeace welcomes the 1998 undertaking by Nike to eliminate PVC from its footwear and clothing products. No doubt the use of soft PVC in toys represents a relatively minor proportion of total PVC usage. But when it exposes the especially vulnerable so directly to risk, who would dare claim it insignificant?

Happily, more and more manufacturers, retailers and governments are turning their backs on soft PVC toys. In the absence of a comprehensive and comprehensible labelling requirement worldwide, parents would be advised to do the same.

Environmental justice The decision by Shintech - subsidiary of Japanese chemicals giant Shin-Etsu - to pull out of plans to build one of the world's largest vinyl production facilities at Convent in Louisiana represents an emphatic moral victory for townspeople and a ringing endorsement of environmental justice. It is also a mortal blow to a major POPs industry. Greenpeace has worked closely with local communities to force a climb-down in Convent. As Shintech shifts its focus to an alternative location in Louisiana, the focus of the opposition campaign shifts with it.

On the other side of the world, another glimmer. Following a campaign by Greenpeace condemning the offloading or trafficking of toxic waste by richer nations, the government of Hong Kong has agreed to outlaw the passage of toxic waste both through and into that entrepôt.

From Italy, finally, despite 1998's shut-down by magistrates of a discharge outlet which has systematically pumped POPs into the Venice lagoon, the Porto Marghera plant of PVC giant European Vinyls Corporation continues to defy the law. The ready settlement out of court of claims against other polluters raises questions regarding their denials of responsibility.