Are Dioxins produced naturally in the environment?
A. After an extremely extensive review, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that 98 percent of dioxins in the environment arise from human activities.(1) As shown by the historical record of lake sediment cores in the U.S., dioxins and furans were almost undetectable until around 1940. Over the following 30 years, their concentrations increased in parallel with increasing commercial production of organochlorines.(2) Likewise, in archived British soils, concentrations of dioxins and furans were extremely low during the mid-1880s, then began a steady increase around the turn of the century, (3) when mass production of elemental chlorine began in the U.K.(4) The increased use of coal during the industrial revolution was also not responsible: Studies of atmospheric emission from coal-burning power plants did not detect any PCDD/Fs (5) Analyses of ancient human tissues also show that, if dioxins are produced in nature, the quantity produced is minuscule in comparison to
