Levels, Distribution, and Health Risk of Phthalate Esters in Urban Soils of Beijing, China

Abstract

The content of phthalate esters (PAEs) was investigated in urban soil samples ( = 127, 0-20 cm) collected from a business area (BU), classical garden (CL), culture and educational area (CU), large public green space (LA), residential area (RE), and roadside area (RO) in Beijing. The sum of all PAE contents ranged from 1.9 to 3141.7 ng/g, with an average of 1139.6 ± 727.6 ng/g. Di-n-butyl phthalate (DBP) and di-(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) were the major contaminants in the soil samples. The content of DEHP and DBP in the urban soil of Beijing showed decreasing trends from the center of the city to the suburbs, which was probably because the center of the city has a longer history. In addition, higher DBP content also occurred in the south of the city, which was caused by the existence of several factories that produce commodity chemical and building materials in these areas. Because of its greater age, less disturbance from human activity, and high levels of total organic carbon and black carbon in CL, PAE content in CL was the highest among the six types of land use, followed by RE, CU, BU, LA, and RO. Although in 82.6% of the soil samples, DBP content exceeded the recommended allowable soil content in New York, USA, health risk assessment with CalTOX and Monte Carlo analysis showed that the total cancer risk values of PAEs were lower than the acceptable cancer risk value (10(-4)) and that the risk mainly came from dermal uptake and inhalation exposure pathways.

Contamination and remediation of phthalic acid esters in agricultural soils in China: a review

“…For example, the phthalic acid ester concentrations in urban soils were found to be higher than those in rural soils, which was due to the intense commercial activities and greater phthalic acid ester discharge from plastic materials in urban regions than rural regions (Sun et al 2013;Xia et al 2011b). Furthermore, transverse phthalic acid ester distribution was also impacted by the phthalic acid ester mobility in the soil (Liu et al , 2010b; for example, elevated concentrations of diethylhexyl phthalate and dibutyl phthalate were found at a further distance rather than at the disposal center ).…”

Soil contamination by phthalate esters in Chinese intensive vegetable production systems with different modes of use of plastic film

“…They are widely used in general plastic products, cosmetics, personal care products, food packaging and medical products (Van Wezel et al, 2000;Hens and Caballos, 2003;Cai et al, 2008;Xia et al, 2011). The global consumption of PAEs is about 6.0 million tons per annum (Xie et al, 2007).…”

“…Numerous studies have indicated that agricultural soils and vegetables have been contaminated by toxic pollutants (Gao et al, 2005). Some investigators have found that toxic pollutants such as heavy metals (Hu and Ding, 2009), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) (Yin et al, 2008), persistent organic pollutants (POPs) (Gao et al, 2005), organochlorine pesticides (Tao et al, 2005) and PAEs are present in suburban agricultural soils (Chen et al, 2011;Xia et al, 2011;Kong et al, 2012). PAEs are among the most abundant semi-volatile organic chemicals found in Chinese soils .…”

Photodegradation of selected phthalates on mural painting surfaces under UV light irradiation

“…Phthalates are not chemically but only physically bound to the polymer chains; hence, they may be leached into the environment and are ubiquitously found in air, water, soils, and sediments [13][14][15][16][17]. People exposure to PAEs may arise from toys, child-care articles, building materials, home furnishing, car interiors, clothing, medical devices, and foodcontact materials.…”