Neglected but potentially significant emissions of unintentional persistent organic pollutants from primary copper smelting industry

for oxygen-enriched side-blown furnace smelting equipped with baghouse filtration. These results indicate that emissions from primary copper smelting warrant attention in regions with concentrated production activity. The secondary-capture stream exhibited comparable POP concentrations to those in end-of-pipe emissions. Fugitive-related pathways could contribute emissions on the same order as end-of-pipe releases. Fugitive releases should be explicitly considered to reduce systematic underestimation in inventories and associated risk assessments.