Capacity building for persistent organic pollutant (POP) analysis in the Pacific and POP trends in the Pacific Islands

This article gives an overview of activities relating to the establishment of a regional center of excellence for testing persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in the Pacific Island Region. It highlights the areas of analytical procedures that needed improvement to perform trace-level POP testing in human-breast milk. It describes the actions taken by the POP expert group of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Chemicals during inspection visits and in setting up analytical procedures and proficiency tests to achieve acceptable levels of results for testing POPs regionally. It also describes results of early studies on POPs in human-breast milk in several Pacific Island countries, which generally show relatively low levels.

► p,p′ DDE is the dominant POP found in human-milk samples.
► Alumina clean-up and silica-column fractionation improved analytical capacity.
► Lower limits of detection (LODs) were achieved using a micro-electrochemical detector.
► A GC was dedicated exclusively to POPs analysis.