Contaminant pattern and bioaccumulation of legacy and emerging organhalogen pollutants in the aquatic biota from an e‐waste recycling region in South China

Abstract

Legacy pollutants, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane and its metabolites (DDTs), and some emerging organhalogen pollutants, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), hexabromobenzene (HBB), pentabromotoluene (PBT), 2,3,4,5,6-pentabromoethyl benzene (PBEB), 1,2-bis (2,4,6-tribromophenoxy) ethane (BTBPE), and dechlorane plus (DP), were detected in an aquatic food chain (invertebrates and fish) from an e-waste recycling region in South China. Polychlorinated biphenyls, DDTs, PBDEs, and HBB were detected in more than 90% of the samples, with respective concentrations ranging from not detected (ND)-32,000 ng/g lipid weight, ND-850 ng/g lipid weight, 8 to 1,300 ng/g lipid weight, and 0.28 to 240 ng/g lipid weight. Pentabromotoluene, PBEB, BTBPE, and DP were also quantifiable in collected samples with a concentration range of ND-40 ng/g lipid weight. The elevated levels of PCBs and PBDEs in the organisms, compared with those in non-e-waste regions in South China, suggest that these two kinds of pollutants derived mainly from e-waste recycling practices. Hexabromobenzene was significantly correlated with PBDEs, implying that HBB come from the release of e-waste along with PBDEs and/or the pyrolysis of BDE209. Most of the compounds whose trophic magnification factor (TMF) could be calculated were found to biomagnify (TMF > 1). Hexabromobenzene was also found, for the first time, to biomagnify in the present food web, with a TMF of 2.1.