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Background

Utilization of halogen containing materials in processes such as water treatment, bleaching, or even general synthesis to create the final product, generates a number of organic halides. These organic halides are released in wastewater from the oil, chemical, and paper industries, and find their way to the consumer and eventually to a landfill or oceanic dumps. Within the soil, the halo compounds resist degradation and often react with metal ions, resulting in non-degradable metal complexes, increasing soil toxicity and accumulating in the food chain of aquatic organisms. Up to 2000 ppm of these bio-accumulative organic chlorides were detected in fat of fish from the waters where bleaching effluents were disposed by paper mills, where a 2% water concentration is considered toxic for the fish. While strict regulations from the government have reduced the high level of past emissions, these compounds find their way to water sources through improper consumer disposal of items that contain chlorinated compounds. The presence of any organic halides in natural water has been considered an indication of contamination with xenobiotics. Once in water, the naturally occurring fulvic acids and humic acids can lead to formation of mutagenic compounds such as halogenated furanone MX (Z-3-chloro-4-(dichloromethyl)-5-hydroxy-2(5H)-furanone). Consumption of these mutagenic compounds could cause several abnormalities in development and reproduction in humans through long half-lives and mimicking hormone receptors. For example, compounds like dioxins can inhibit the actions of sex hormones by binding to steroid receptors along with causing long lasting cell disruption in several tissues.