chemicals, once in the environment, move through ecosystems, is essential to designing ways to isolate and remove them. Working backwards through the food chain may help to identify areas to prioritize for remediation efforts. This may be extremely challenging for contaminated fish and marine mammals that have a large habitat and who consume fish from many different areas throughout their lives. Many persistent organic compounds, PCB, DDT and PBDE included, accumulate in river and marine sediments. Several processes are currently being used by the EPA to clean up heavily polluted areas, as outlined in their Green Remediation program. One of the most interesting ways is the utilization of naturally occurring microbes that degrade PCB congeners to remediate contaminated areas. There are many success stories of cleanup efforts of large heavily contaminated Superfund sites. A landfill in Austin, Texas contaminated with illegally dumped VOCs was restored in a year to a wetland and educational park. A US uranium enrichment site that was contaminated with uranium and PCBs was cleaned up with high tech equipment used to find the pollutants within the soil. The soil and water at a polluted wetlands site were cleaned of VOCs, PCBs and lead, native plants were installed as biological filters, and a community program was implemented to ensure ongoing monitoring of pollutant concentrations in the area. These case studies are encouraging due to the short amount of time needed to remediate the site and the high level of success achieved. Studies suggest that bisphenol A, certain PCBs, and phthalate compounds are preferentially eliminated from the human body through sweat. Economic effects Human exposure may cause some health effects, such as lower IQ and adult obesity. These effects may lead to lost productivity, disability, or premature death in some people. One source estimated that, within the European Union, this economic effect might have about twice the economic impact as the effects caused by mercury and lead contamination. The socio-economic burden of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDC)-associated health effects for the European Union was estimated based on currently available literature and considering the uncertainties with respect to causality with EDCs and corresponding health-related costs to be in the range of €46 billion to €288 billion per year. See also Antiandrogens in the environment Theo Colborn Endocrine system Environmental hormones Hormone Obesogen Pollutant-induced abnormal behaviour Precautionary principle Stink! John Sumpter Xenoestrogen References Further reading and . External links Endocrine Disruption