Measurement of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in plastic resin pellets from remote islands: Toward establishment of background concentrations for International Pellet Watch

Measurement of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in plastic resin pellets from remote islands: Toward establishment of background concentrations for International Pellet Watch

► Pellets from Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans and Caribbean Sea were analyzed. ► Background concentrations from remote islands were presented. ► PCBs <10ng/g, DDTs <4ng/g, HCHs <2ng/g were presented as background. ► Sporadic large concentrations of POPs in the pellets were observed. Pl...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Marine pollution bulletin Vol. 64; no. 2; pp. 445 - 448
Main Authors: Heskett, Marvin, Takada, Hideshige, Yamashita, Rei, Yuyama, Masaki, Ito, Maki, Geok, Yeo Bee, Ogata, Yuko, Kwan, Charita, Heckhausen, Angelika, Taylor, Heidi, Powell, Taj, Morishige, Carey, Young, Doug, Patterson, Hugh, Robertson, Bryson, Bailey, Elizabeth, Mermoz, Jorge
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01-02-2012
Subjects:
DDT (pesticide)
DDTs
Environmental Monitoring
Geography
HCH (pesticide)
HCHs
industrialization
islands
lindane
Marine debris
Marine plastics
Monitoring
Oceans and Seas
PCBs
pellets
persistent organic pollutants
Plastics - chemistry
polychlorinated biphenyls
sampling
Water Pollutants, Chemical - analysis
water pollution
DDTs
PCBs
Marine plastics
Monitoring
Marine debris
HCHs
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Summary:► Pellets from Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans and Caribbean Sea were analyzed. ► Background concentrations from remote islands were presented. ► PCBs <10ng/g, DDTs <4ng/g, HCHs <2ng/g were presented as background. ► Sporadic large concentrations of POPs in the pellets were observed. Plastic resin pellets collected from remote islands in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans and the Caribbean Sea were analyzed for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichloro-diphenyltrichloroethane and its degradation products (DDTs), and hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs). Concentrations of PCBs (sum of 13 congeners) in the pellets were 0.1–9.9ng/g-pellet. These were 1–3 orders of magnitude smaller than those observed in pellets from industrialized coastal shores. Concentrations of DDTs in the pellets were 0.8–4.1ng/g-pellet. HCH concentrations were 0.6–1.7ng/g-pellet, except for 19.3ng/g-pellet on St. Helena, where current use of lindane is likely influence. This study provides background levels of POPs (PCBs<10ng/g-pellet, DDTs<4ng/g-pellet, HCHs<2ng/g-pellet) for International Pellet Watch. Sporadic large concentrations of POPs were found in some pellet samples from remote islands and should be considered in future assessments of pollutants on plastic debris.
Bibliography:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2011.11.004
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0025-326X
1879-3363
DOI:10.1016/j.marpolbul.2011.11.004