with high efficiency, low toxicity and persistence". The Law of Marine Environment Protection was established in 1982, regulating the use of chemical pesticides according to a national safety standard. In 1983, China State Council started to ban the production and usage of several highly toxic pesticides, such as Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and Hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH) \[[@B4-ijerph-16-03083]\]. Although the Chinese government has a strong expectation on banning toxic pesticides, it lacks effective supervision and executive force \[[@B5-ijerph-16-03083]\].

In the next 30 years, several acts related to POPs have been approved or revised by the National People's Congress of China, including the Law of Marine Environment Protection (1982, 1999, 2013, 2016, 2017), the Law of Environmental Protection (1989, 2014), the Law of Prevention and Control of Water Pollution (1984, 1996, 2008, 2017), theLaw of Prevention and Control of Environmental Pollution by Solid Waste (1995, 2016), the Law of Prevention and Control of Atmospheric Pollution (1987, 1995, 2000, 2015, 2018), the Law of Appraising of Environment Impacts (2002, 2016, 2018), the Law of Quality and Safety of Agriculture Products (2006; 2018), the Law of Prevention and Control of Occupational Disease (2001, 2011, 2016, 2017, 2018), and the Law of Safety in Production (2002, 2009, 2014). Always listed in the category of pesticides or hazardous chemicals, POPs were regulated not only by the laws but also by regulations and ordinances, which provide direct instructions in marine POPs management, such as the Regulations of Chemicals Control (1995, 2011), the Regulations of Safety for Hazardous Chemicals (2002, 2011, 2013), the Regulations of Pesticide Labels