Re-evaluating the list of high-production chemicals predicted to become Arctic contaminants

Abstract

The large number of historical and current organic chemicals in commerce, and the ability of these compounds to make their way from industrial to remote regions, has resulted in concerted efforts to predict which chemicals have the capacity to migrate from where they are used/disposed to areas such as the Arctic. A suite of 120 high production volume chemicals has been recently screened from an initial dataset of >100,000 compounds and listed as potential Arctic contaminants. In the current work, we critically assess members of this proposed list for their possible rapid reactivity in environmental systems that would prevent substantial accumulation or transport in the environment and accumulation in vivo, as well as whether the investigated physicochemical properties are adequate for the intended environmental screening purposes.