Monitoring of styrene oligomers as indicators of polystyrene plastic pollution in the North-West Pacific Ocean

Kwon, Bum Gun; Amamiya, Keiji; Sato, Hisakuni; Chung, Seon-Yong; Kodera, Yōichi; Kim, Seung-Kyu; Lee, Eung Jae; Saido, Katsuhiko

doi:10.1016/j.chemosphere.2017.04.060

Cited by 43 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Acute toxicity tests using fathead minnow determined LC50s of 10 mg/L for styrenes (Cushman et al, 1997). For styrenes, these concentrations are several orders of magnitude greater than those found in nature (Kwon et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Widespread contamination has resulted in EPS being found in the gut contents of marine invertebrate and vertebrate wildlife (Boerger et al, 2010;Schuyler et al, 2014;Jang et al, 2016). In addition to physical EPS material, styrenes, the monomeric building blocks of the polymer, are found in ocean water and sediments globally (Kwon et al, 2015(Kwon et al, , 2017. Because polystyrene plastic is thought to be one of the only sources of styrenes to the environment, the contamination is expected to be from polystyrene weathering and leaching in the oceans (Kwon et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to physical EPS material, styrenes, the monomeric building blocks of the polymer, are found in ocean water and sediments globally (Kwon et al, 2015(Kwon et al, , 2017. Because polystyrene plastic is thought to be one of the only sources of styrenes to the environment, the contamination is expected to be from polystyrene weathering and leaching in the oceans (Kwon et al, 2017). Furthermore, in some parts of the world EPS has been cited as a source of other chemicals to the environment (Rani et al, 2015;Jang et al, 2017) and wildlife (Jang et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Leachate From Expanded Polystyrene Cups Is Toxic to Aquatic Invertebrates (Ceriodaphnia dubia)

et al. 2018

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Expanded polystyrene (EPS) products and their associated chemicals (e.g., styrenes) are widespread in the marine environment. As a consequence, bans on their use for single-use packaging materials are being proposed in several municipalities. To better understand how science can inform decision-making, we looked at the available scientific literature about contamination and effects and conducted experiments to measure chemical leachate from polystyrene products and toxicity from the leachate. We conducted leaching experiments with common food matrices (water, soup broth, gravy, black coffee and coffee with cream and sugar) at relevant temperatures (70 and 95 • C) that are consumed in or with several polystyrene products (coffee cup lids, polystyrene stir sticks, polystyrene spoons, EPS cups, EPS bowls, and EPS takeout containers). We analyzed each sample for styrene, ethylbenzene, toluene, benzene, meta-and para-xylene, isopropylbenzene, and isopropyltoluene-chemicals associated with polystyrene products. To determine whether the leachates are toxic, we conducted chronic toxicity tests, measuring survival and reproductive output in Ceriodaphnia dubia. Toxicity tests included nine treatments: seven concentrations of ethylbenzene, EPS cup leachate and a negative control. Overall, we found that temperature has a significant effect on leaching. We only detected leachates in trials conducted at higher temperature −95 • C. Ethylbenzene was the only target analyte with final concentrations above the method limit of detection, and was present in the greatest concentrations in EPS and with soup broth. Measurable concentrations of ethylbenzene in the leachate ranged from 1.3 to 3.4 µg/L. In toxicity tests, the calculated LC50 for ethylbenzene was 14 mg/L and the calculated LC20 was 210 µg/L. For the treatment exposed to the EPS cup leachate, mortality was 40%-four times greater than the negative control. Finally, there was no significant difference (p = 0.17) between reproductive output for any treatment with ethylbenzene, but there was a significant reduction (p = 0.01) in reproductive output for the treatment exposed to the EPS leachate compared to the negative control. Thus, although the target analyte ethylbenzene was not toxic at concentrations detected in the leachate, significant adverse effects were detected in the whole EPS cup leachate sample.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Leachate From Expanded Polystyrene Cups Is Toxic to Aquatic Invertebrates (Ceriodaphnia dubia)

et al. 2018

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“…10,17 Using 2.5 L water and 5.0 g sand dichloromethane extracts, SOs were analyzed in detail by Gas Chromatograph equipped with Mass Spectrometry (GC/MS). [10][11][12][13][14] Mean SO value from coastal surveys worldwide were found to be 1613.4 µg kg -1 for sand samples and 2.7 µg L -1 for water samples. SO contamination of sand was 600 times higher than that of water.…”

Section: Worldwide Sos Contaminationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Waste Polystyrene Degradation in the World Oceans: Newly identified sources of Contamination

Saido

Kodera

Kimukai³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Since 1970, lumps of plastic breakage into micro/nano pieces has been clearly shown a serious and large source of ocean pollution. To clarify in detail the course of this impact, thermoplastics were decomposed at natural conditions kinetically. And field surveys conducted on four thousand sand and water samples including these at deep-sea sites from around the world during the period, 2000 to 2015. All samples were found to contain styrene oligomers (SOs), that had been generated from drifting polystyrene (PS) degradation. Lumps of plastic not only break up into micro/nano-fragments but also degrade into their basic structure units of plastic. From 1950 to 2015, 4.2 billion metric tons (MT) of SOs were shown to be generated from drifting PS. The monomers are newly and highly significant source of pollution of marine ecosystem directly and global warming of planet and should be given the utmost serious attention.

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“…9 Another environmental indication of the continuous break-down of plastics in nature is the presence of styrene oligomers in the marine environment. 10,11 Furthermore, it has been shown experimentally that plastics can be mechanically, 12 and photo-chemically 13,14 broken down to nanoplastics. Interestingly, nanoplastics released from biodegradable plastic, such as polyhydroxybutyrate, appear to have adverse effects on freshwater organisms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Controlled protein mediated aggregation of polystyrene nanoplastics does not reduce toxicity towards Daphnia magna

Frankel

Ekvall

Kelpsiene

et al. 2020

Environ. Sci.: Nano

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Monitoring of styrene oligomers as indicators of polystyrene plastic pollution in the North-West Pacific Ocean

Cited by 43 publications

References 31 publications

Leachate From Expanded Polystyrene Cups Is Toxic to Aquatic Invertebrates (Ceriodaphnia dubia)

Leachate From Expanded Polystyrene Cups Is Toxic to Aquatic Invertebrates (Ceriodaphnia dubia)

Waste Polystyrene Degradation in the World Oceans: Newly identified sources of Contamination

Controlled protein mediated aggregation of polystyrene nanoplastics does not reduce toxicity towards Daphnia magna

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