An approach to detect anomalies in the exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) throughout the food chain is presented. The proposed method is useful also for preventing soil contamination by POPs that would require a remediation intervention. A steel making plant and its surrounding area were selected as a case-study. To investigate the possible effects of the plant on the settled population, sewage sludge samples from four wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) were taken: one of these was chosen as reference for the population exposed to the emissions of the mill; the remaining three plants were chosen to provide background information about the POP content in sludge. No clear anomalies in dioxins (PCDD/Fs) were detected for the potentially exposed population. In terms of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs), the steel plant-influenced WWTP showed a total concentration between 2.7 and 4.8-time higher than the other plants; in terms of equivalent toxicity, only slightly higher concentrations were found for the steel plant-influenced WWTP. Therefore, if considering acceptable the daily intake from the diet of the unexposed population, the absence of a dioxin and dioxin-like emergency in the area of the mill is demonstrated. This method represents an innovative and technically simple tool to assess situations of permanent exposure to POP levels that are higher than the background. throughout the human body [16,12], showing the significant role of bioaccumulation. Journal of Bior emediation & BiodegradationThe presence of organic [17,18] and inorganic [19,20] hazardous substances in sewage sludge has been object of investigation in several studies. Sewage sludge has also been studied as potential source of energy [21][22][23][24][25][26], and as raw material for conventional [27,28] and nonconventional products [29,30]. In addition to these applications, sewage sludge can be also used as source of information to seek potential anomalous levels of exposure of a population to POPs: indeed, the dominant exposure route of POPs released by the most important sources (e.g. steel making plants) is the emission into the atmosphere, the atmospheric deposition to farmlands and pastures, the consequent contamination of the food produced, the intake by humans, the excretion, the transportation to WWTPs and the POP concentration in sewage sludge; thus, analyses on the POP content of sludge samples offer an alternative, inexpensive and technically simple approach to assess the existence of critical situations of exposure to POPs. Several studies focused on the ambient air and deposition monitoring in areas where steel making plants were present and highlighted their evident influence in terms of PCDD/F contribution in the surroundings [31][32][33]. The present study is then intended to propose a methodology, in order to detect anomalies throughout the food chain, as a consequence of the release of POPs in air from significant sources and their subsequent deposition to farmlands and pastures.This study focuses on a ste...