Abstract
Guanabara Bay is the most important estuarine system in Rio de Janeiro City and receives the most untreated effluents of the city. As a consequence of this impact the beaches in the metropolitan zone are heavily polluted. Bivalves mollusks are able to store a wide variety of pollutants from very diluted solutions without visible damage. The Perna perna mussel is a bivalve organism that accumulates metal and thus it is considered an environmental pollution indicator. Native from the region, this species is consumed in the diet by poor people since it is easily available. Lead is one of the most common pollutants in the environment. It is considered toxic to human beings and animals and without any physiological known function in the organism. Lead toxic effects can affect almost all organs and systems of the body. In this work electro-thermal atomic absorption spectrometry was used to determine lead concentration in Perna perna mussels collected at Flamengo, Vermelha and Vidigal beaches located in the metropolitan region of the Rio de Janeiro City. The mean lead concentration found was (2.0 ± 0.93 mg.kg–1) almost 10 times greater than that found for non exposed mussel, used as the control group from Penha (SC). This value is the upper limit allowed by the Brazilian legislation (2.0 mg.kg–1), meaning a risk to those people with a rich diet in mussels.
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