Levels and potential health hazards of PCBs in shallow groundwater of an e-waste recycling area, China

Abstract

The improper disassembly of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB)-containing equipments such as capacitor and electrical transformer can lead to PCB pollution. To investigate the levels and patterns of PCBs in shallow groundwater in regions where PCB-containing equipment is disassembled, 19 shallow groundwater samples were collected from a recycling area for waste capacitors and electrical transformers in southeastern China. The Σ21 PCBs in shallow groundwater had a large variation ranging from 6.22 to 97.3 ng L−1, with a mean of 31.6 ng L−1 and low chlorinated PCBs (3–5 chlorinated biphenyls) were predominant homologs in majority groundwater samples. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) toxic equivalents of 6 shallow groundwater samples with detectable dioxin-like PCBs varied greatly from 0.29 to 650 pg L−1, and all of them posing serious cancer risk (>1 × 10−6) to children and adults. Much attention should be paid to the vertical migration of low chlorinated PCBs and the cancer risk of dioxin-like PCBs in the study area and similar e-waste recycling areas.