Blood lead and cadmium levels and relevant factors among children from an e-waste recycling town in China

Zheng, Lin; Wu, Kusheng; Li, Yan; Qi, Zongli; Han, Dai Hoon; Bao, Zhenan; Gu, Chengwu; Chen, Gangjian; Liu, Junxiao; Chen, Songjian; Xu, Xijin; Huo, Xia

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2008.04.002

Cited by 246 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…3). The Pb levels of these children (GM: 29.6 mg/g) were also much higher than those in the control subjects, supporting previous studies regarding elevated blood lead levels of children in e-waste recycling areas (Huo et al, 2007;Zheng et al, 2008). The subjects in the 26-55 age groups are more likely to be directly involved in e-waste recycling activities and correspondingly, the highest GMs of Cd, Cu and Pb were also found in those groups compared to the younger and older groups.…”

Section: Comparison Between Villages Gender Age and Residence Statussupporting

confidence: 87%

Use of scalp hair as indicator of human exposure to heavy metals in an electronic waste recycling area

Wang

et al. 2009

Environmental Pollution

194

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Human scalp hair samples can be used to indicate environmental and occupational exposure of heavy metals due to intensive electronic waste recycling activities. a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c tScalp hair samples were collected at an electronic waste (e-waste) recycling area and analyzed for trace elements and heavy metals. Elevated levels were found for Cu and Pb with geometric means (GMs) at 39.8 and 49.5 mg/g, and the levels of all elements were found in the rank order Pb > Cu [ Mn > Ba > Cr > Ni > Cd > As > V. Besides Cu and Pb, Cd (GM: 0.518 mg/g) was also found to be significantly higher compared to that in hair samples from control areas. Differences with age, gender, residence status and villages could be distinguished for most of the elements. The high levels of Cd, Cu and Pb were likely found to be originated from e-waste related activities, and specific sources were discussed. This study shows that human scalp hair could be a useful biomarker to assess the extent of heavy metal exposure to workers and residents in areas with intensive e-waste recycling activities.

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Section: Comparison Between Villages Gender Age and Residence Statussupporting

confidence: 87%

Use of scalp hair as indicator of human exposure to heavy metals in an electronic waste recycling area

Wang

et al. 2009

Environmental Pollution

194

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“…1), indicating children living much closer to the coking plant were more likely to experience lead exposure. Similar decreasing trend from the source location was previously reported in other studies in a leadzinc mining area (Qu et al, 2012) and an e-waste recycling town in China (Zheng et al, 2008). It is worth mentioning that, the highest blood lead concentration occurred to the child who living 2 km away from the coking plant, could be mainly attributed to the reason that the family was located downwind the coking plant.…”

Section: Blood Lead Levels Of Children Living Around Coking Areasupporting

confidence: 86%

“…It has been previously reported that quadrupole-based ICP-MS, compared with other analytical techniques including TIMS, MC-ICP-MS, ICP-SFMS and so on, could also be used as an effective analytical technique to measure Pb isotope ratios with a calibration of the mass spectrometers and normalization of the measured ratios of the four Pb isotopes using a standard reference material (e.g., SRM981) (Vanhaecke and Moens, 2004;Zheng et al, 2008). Source identification of lead pollution in various media was sometimes conducted based on a quadrupole ICP-MS (Díaz-Somoano et al, 2009;Liang et al, 2010;Oulhote et al, 2011 Pb/ 206 Pb in this study.…”

Section: Pb Isotopic Composition Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This can be explained by the fact that the ban on leaded gasoline significantly reduced BLLs in Taiwan, and there are now fewer automobiles contributing to airborne lead levels, thus children now receive more of their lead exposure from sources containing less lead such as paint and toys . Compared with copper smelting and E-waste recycling, the coking industry releases less lead into the environment, because the lead content of coal is not as high as those in metal ores (Hilts, 2003) and E-waste (Zheng et al, 2008). Previous studies have reported that non-ferrous metal smelting operations, such as copper smelting, emit large quantities of trace metals (Pacyna and Pacyna, 2001), and the copper-smelter and Ewaste industries are significant contributors to atmospheric lead (Li et al, 2012).…”

Section: Blood Lead Levels Of Children Living Around Coking Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Isotopic ratio based source apportionment of children's blood lead around coking plant area

Cao

Duan

Zhao

et al. 2014

Environment International

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Lead exposure in the environment is a major hazard affecting human health, particularly for children. The blood lead levels in the local children living around the largest coking area in China were measured, and the source of blood lead and the main pathways of lead exposure were investigated based on lead isotopic ratios ( 207 Pb/ 206 Pb and 208 Pb/ 206 Pb) in blood and in a variety of media, including food, airborne particulate matter, soil, dust and drinking water. The children's blood lead level was 5.25 (1.59 to 34.36 as range) μg dL −1 , lower than the threshold in the current criteria of China defined by the US Centers for Disease Control (10 μg dL −1 ). The isotopic ratios in the blood were 2.111 ± 0.018 for 208 Pb/ 206 Pb and 0.864 ± 0.005 for 207 Pb/ 206 Pb, similar to those of vegetables, wheat, drinking water, airborne particulate matter, but different from those of vehicle emission and soil/dust, suggesting that the formers were the main pathway of lead exposure among the children. The exposure pathway analysis based on the isotopic ratios and the human health risk assessment showed that dietary intake of food and drinking water contributed 93.67% of total exposed lead. The study further indicated that the coal used in the coking plant is the dominant pollution source of lead in children's blood.

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“…In addition, the children's BLLs in this study were lower than that of children living around a copper-smelter (Carrizales et al, 2006) and around an E-waste recycling industrial area . Except for the age factor, the coking industry produced much lower Pb emissions due to a lower Pb content in coal than that in ores and E-waste (Hilts, 2003;Zheng et al, 2008).…”

Section: Contents Of Heavy Metals and Metalloids In Children's Bloodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health risks from the exposure of children to As, Se, Pb and other heavy metals near the largest coking plant in China

Cao

Duan

Zhao

et al. 2014

Science of The Total Environment

323

106

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• The concentration of heavy metals and metalloids in environment and children's blood are observed around the Chinese largest coking plant.• The health risk assessments of children are analyzed.• Foods from the coking plant are heavily contaminated by As, Cr and Se.• Food Ingestion pathway contributes most to children's average daily dose for most heavy metals and metalloids.• Higher potentially non-carcinogenic and carcinogenic risks happen to the local children. a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Coking influences environmental quality and poses high risks to human health as large amounts of heavy metals and metalloids are emitted into the environment from coal during the coking process. Health risks depend heavily on multi-pathway and element-specific exposures, which have, unfortunately, been rarely studied. In this study, children's health risks and exposure levels to As, Se, and heavy metals (Pb, Cd, Cr, Ni, Co, Zn, Cu, Mn, V and Sb) in the water, soil, dust, air and locally produced food were studied based on field sampling and questionnaire-based surveys around the largest coking area in China. Human blood samples were collected and analyzed to indicate the exposure levels. The non-carcinogenic risks to children mainly resulted from Cr, Mn, Pb, As and Sb, the levels of which were 3 to 10 times higher than the acceptable levels (1.0 × 10 −6 ). The carcinogenic risks to children were 30 to 200 times higher than the safe level (1.0 × 10 −6 -1.0 × 10 −4 ), which could be attributed to Cr, As and Ni pollution. The estimated risks mainly came from the pathway involving the ingestion of locally produced food, accounting for more than 85% in total for most elements. For As, the food ingestion and air inhalation exposure pathways both contributed approximately 50%, respectively. The high risks in this study highlight the attention paid to the health of children who live in the vicinity of coking activities and the importance of site-specific multi-pathway health risk assessments and food safety to protect potentially exposed children.

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Blood lead and cadmium levels and relevant factors among children from an e-waste recycling town in China

Cited by 246 publications

References 39 publications

Use of scalp hair as indicator of human exposure to heavy metals in an electronic waste recycling area

Use of scalp hair as indicator of human exposure to heavy metals in an electronic waste recycling area

Isotopic ratio based source apportionment of children's blood lead around coking plant area

Health risks from the exposure of children to As, Se, Pb and other heavy metals near the largest coking plant in China

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