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Chlordecone, better known in the United States under the brand name Kepone, is an organochlorine compound and a colourless solid. It is an obsolete insecticide, now prohibited in the western world, but only after many thousands of tonnes had been produced and used. Chlordecone is a known persistent organic pollutant (POP) that was banned globally by the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants in 2009. Chlordecone is made by dimerizing hexachlorocyclopentadiene and hydrolyzing to a ketone. It is also the main degradation product of mirex. In the U.S., chlordecone, commercialized under the brand name "Kepone", was produced by Allied Signal Company and LifeSciences Product Company in Hopewell, Virginia. The improper handling and dumping of the substance (including the waste materials generated in its manufacturing process) into the nearby James River (U.S.) in the 1960s and 1970s drew national attention to its toxic effects on humans and wildlife. After two physicians, Dr. Yi-nan Chou and Dr. Robert S. Jackson of the Virginia Health Department, notified the Centers for Disease Control that employees of the company had been found to have toxic chemical poisoning, LifeSciences voluntarily closed its plant on July 4, 1975, and cleanup of the contamination began and a 100-mile section of the James River was closed to fishing while state health officials looked for other persons who might have been injured. At least 29 people in the area were hospitalized as a result of their exposure to Kepone. The product is made in a Diels-Alder reaction shared with pesticides like chlordane and endosulfan. Chlordecone was not federally regulated until after the Hopewell disaster, in which 29 factory workers were hospitalized with various ailments, including neurological. Chlordecone is cited amongst a handful of other noxious substances as the driver for Gerald Ford's half-hearted approval in 1976 of the Toxic Substances Control Act, which "remains one of the most controversial regulatory bills ever passed".

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Chlordecone

Endosulfan

Endosulfan is an off-patent organochlorine insecticide and acaricide that is being phased out globally. It became a highly controversial agrichemical due to its acute toxicity, potential for bioaccumulation, and role as an endocrine disruptor. Because of its threats to human health and the environment, a global ban on the manufacture and use of endosulfan was negotiated under the Stockholm Convention in April 2011. The ban has taken effect in mid-2012, with certain uses exempted for five additional years.

Persistent organic pollutant

Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are organic compounds that are resistant to degradation through chemical, biological, and photolytic processes. They are toxic chemicals that adversely affect human health and the environment around the world. Because they can be transported by wind and water, most POPs generated in one country can and do affect people and wildlife far from where they are used and released.

Projeter le vide, revaloriser l'espace public à Echallens

Adrien Blondel

Le projet est basé sur l’idée qu’une harmonie entre « plein » et « vide » est possible, établissant une relation entre le volume bâti et l’espace public. Comme dans beaucoup d’autres localités suisses

2021