Abstract
Road dust as a by-product of exhaust and non-exhaust emissions can be a major cause of systemic oxidative stress and multiple disorders. Substantial amounts of road dust are repeatedly resuspended, in particular at traffic lights and junctions where more braking is involved, causing potential threat to pedestrians, especially children. In order to determine the degree of contamination in the heavily traffic-congested cities of Poland, a total of 148 samples of road dust (RD), sludge from storm drains (SL) and roadside soil (RS) were collected. Sixteen metals were analysed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS) in all samples. Chemical evaluation followed by Principal Component Analysis (PCA) revealed that road environments have been severely contaminated with traffic-related elements. Concentration of copper in all road-environment samples is even higher, exceeding even up to 15 times its average concentrations established for the surrounding soils. Non-carcinogenic health risk assessment revealed that the hazard index (HI) for children in all road-environment samples exceeds the safe level of 1. Therefore, greater attention should be paid to potential health risks caused by the ingestion of traffic-related particles during outdoor activities.
Highlights
Non-exhaust emission from traffic-related sources is considered the priority issue by the EuropeanUnion within its sustainable transport strategy, since it greatly contributes to the overall problem of air pollution
Despite the ongoing fight for better air quality, the vast majority of populations in urban areas is still exposed to air which does not comply with any World Health Organisation (WHO) Air Quality Guidelines and causes a serious health threat
The results of chemical analysis, followed by the calculation of pollution index (PI) for various components of road environment in Warszawa, Krakow, Wroclaw and Opole revealed that road dust, mixed sludge and sediment from storm drains as well as roadside soils were significantly contaminated with all of the investigated elements, in particular with Cu, Pb, Ti and Zn
Summary
Non-exhaust emission from traffic-related sources is considered the priority issue by the EuropeanUnion within its sustainable transport strategy, since it greatly contributes to the overall problem of air pollution. Non-exhaust emission from traffic-related sources is considered the priority issue by the European. Confirm that air pollution is a major cause of various health conditions such as pulmonary and systemic oxidative stress and inflammation, translocation of particle constituents and an associated risk of vascular dysfunction, atherosclerosis, altered cardiac autonomic function, ischaemic cardiovascular and obstructive pulmonary diseases, hemorrhagic stroke and increased cerebrovascular ischemia [2,3]. For the primary PM10 , half of the airborne particles come from non-exhaust emissions originating from multiple sources, with the most significant one being brake lining wear. According to Harrison et al [7], in urban environments, brake wear can contribute up to 55% to the total non-exhaust traffic-related PM10 emissions and up to 21% to the total traffic-related PM10 emissions [7,8]. Garg et al [5], Bukowiecki et al [8] and Iijima et al [9]
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