Following the development of industry, many organic compounds have been discharged into the aquatic environment, resulting in serious pollution on the beaches. Many of these pollutants, such as PAHs, PCBs, OCPs and petroleum hydrocarbon, have been proved to be harmful to the human population. The benthic organisms, based on their ability in bio-accumulating organic contaminations, have been used internationally for bio-monitoring organic pollution in the coastal environment. In this paper we summarize the recent studies of benthic organisms in organic pollution ecology being mainly the following aspects: (1) The determination of the concentration of organic pollutants in benthic organisms and the bioaccumulation kinetics that organic pollutants accumulate and distribute in benthic fauna; (2) The physiological response of benthic organisms to the organic pollutants; (3) The effects of organic pollutants on the benthic fauna community. Studies here show that benthic organisms exhibit different accumulation patterns according to the source of pollution they were exposed to. Benthic organisms are observed to display a yearly cycle in the uptake of contaminants, due to changes associated with their reproductive cycle and lipid content. Organic pollutants are found to be harmful to the immune system of benthic organisms and cause an increase in DNA damage. These studies also show that the persistence of organic pollutants has a negative effect on the benthic community. In this paper, research progress in this field is reviewed and future research is suggested.