Polybrominated diphenyl ethers in plastic products, indoor dust, sediment and fish from informal e-waste recycling sites in Vietnam: a comprehensive assessment of contamination, accumulation pattern, emissions, and human exposure

This review summarises current knowledge about production volumes, physico-chemical properties, analysis, environmental occurrence, fate and behaviour and human exposure to the "novel" brominated flame retardants (NBFRs). We define the term NBFRs as relating to BFRs which are new to the market or newly/recently observed in the environment. Restrictions and bans on the use of some polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) formulations, in many jurisdictions, have created a market for the use of NBFRs. To date, most data on NBFRs have arisen as additional information generated by research designed principally to study more "traditional" BFRs, such as PBDEs. This has led to a wide variety of analytical approaches for sample extraction, extract purification and instrumental analysis of NBFRs. An overview of environmental occurrence in abiotic matrices, aquatic biota, terrestrial biota and birds is presented. Evidence concerning the metabolism and absorption of different NBFRs is reviewed. Human exposure to NBFRs via different exposure pathways is discussed, and research gaps related to analysis, environmental sources, fate, and behaviour and human exposure are identified. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Show more

This paper reviews the existing literature on human exposure to polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), with particular focus on external exposure routes (e.g. dust, diet, and air) and the resulting internal exposure to PBDEs (e.g. breast milk and blood). Being lipophilic and persistent organic compounds, PBDEs accumulate in lipid-rich tissues. Consequently, food items like fish from high trophic levels or lipid-rich oils have been found to contain relatively high concentrations of PBDEs, thus presenting an important exposure pathway to humans. The presence of PBDEs in various products of everyday use may lead to some additional exposure in the home environment. Dust seem to be an aggregate of the indoor source, and the ingestion of dust conveys the highest intake of BDE-209 of all sources, possibly also of other PBDE congeners. The PBDE exposure through dust is significant for toddlers who ingest more dust than adults. Infants are also exposed to PBDEs via breast milk. Internal human exposure has generally been found to be one order of magnitude larger in North America than in Europe and Asia. These differences cannot solely be explained by the dietary intake as meat products are the only food group where some differences has been observed. However, indoor air and dust concentrations have been found to be approximately one order of magnitude higher in North America than in Europe, possibly a result of different fire safety standards. Within Europe, higher PBDE concentrations in dust were found in the UK than in continental Europe. Recent studies have shown that BDE-209 also accumulates in humans. A shift in congener composition from maternal to umbilical cord blood has been observed in several cases. A shift has also been observed for BDE-209, which is present in larger ratios in umbilical cord blood and in particular in placenta than in maternal blood. Show more

Polybrominated diphenyl ether (PBDE) body burdens in North America are 20 times that of Europeans and some "high accumulation" individuals have burdens up to 1-2 orders of magnitude higher than median values, the reasons for which are not known. We estimated emissions and fate of sigma PBDEs (minus BDE-209) in a 470 km2 area of Toronto, Canada, using the Multi-media Urban Model (MUM-Fate). Using a combination of measured and modeled concentrations for indoor and outdoor air, soil, and dust plus measured concentrations in food, we estimated exposure to sigma PBDEs via soil, dust, and dietary ingestion and indoor and outdoor inhalation pathways. Fate calculations indicate that 57-85% of PBDE emissions to the outdoor environment originate from within Toronto and that the dominant removal process is advection by air to downwind locations. Inadvertent ingestion of house dust is the largest contributor to exposure of toddlers through to adults and is thus the main exposure pathway for all life stages other than the infant, including the nursing mother, who transfers PBDEs to her infant via human milk. The next major exposure pathway is dietary ingestion of animal and dairy products. Infant consumption of human milk is the largest contributor to lifetime exposure. Inadvertent ingestion of dust is the main exposure pathway for a scenario of occupational exposure in a computer recycling facility and a fish eater. Ingestion of dust can lead to almost 100-fold higher exposure than "average" for a toddler with a high dust intake rate living in a home in which PBDE concentrations are elevated. Show more