Tetrabromobisphenol A and heavy metal exposure via dust ingestion in an e-waste recycling region in Southeast China

A review of the environmental distribution, fate, and control of tetrabromobisphenol A released from sources

“…High levels in soils at recycling and disposal sites (2.9-780 ng/g dw) and in neighboring agricultural land (29.98-165.79 ng/g dw) in Qingyuan, Guangdong (He et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2015a) and Bui Dau, northern Vietnam (b 0.5-2900 ng/g dw) (Matsukami, 2015) show major effects on soil. Elevated levels were also found in indoor dust at e-waste recycling (42.45-28,993 ng/g dw) (Wu et al, 2016) occupational environments. Outdoor dust at the e-waste recycling facility (42.25-28,993 ng/g dw) had significantly lower levels of TBBPA than indoor dust, indicating accumulation of TBBPA indoors.…”

“…TBBPA manufacturing sites (Morris et al, 2004;Zhu et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2016), sites manufacturing TBBPA-based products (Zhou et al, 2014a;Zhou et al, 2015), electronic waste (e-waste) recycling and disposal sites (He et al, 2010;Matsukami et al, 2015;Liu et al, 2016;Wu et al, 2016), and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) (Morris et al, 2004;Gorga et al, 2013;Song et al, 2014) are the main sources that have been identified. The impact of point sources such as volatilization from consumer products, and non-point sources such as atmospheric deposition, and land application of sewage sludge, have not been studied extensively and are considered in less detail.…”

“…Contaminated dust in office buildings in Shenzhen, China was estimated to contribute N80% of human exposure, 76% from ingestion and 4% from inhalation, compared to 20% from diet (Ni and Zeng, 2013). The same could be true for workers at e-waste recycling and PCB manufacturing facilities where TBBPA levels in air and dust were also high (Wu et al, 2016;Zhou et al, 2014c;Tollbäck et al, 2006).…”

“…TBBPA as a persistent compound has been detected in soil (Qu et al, 2013;Zhu et al, 2014;Matsukami et al, 2015), sediment (Wang et al, 2015a;Yang et al, 2012;He et al, 2013;Xiong et al, 2015;Zhang et al, 2009b;Feng et al, 2012), sludge (Song et al, 2014;Gorga et al, 2013;Morris et al, 2004), surface water (Xu et al, 2013;Yang et al, 2012;Xiong et al, 2015), dust (Ni and Zeng, 2013;Zhou et al, 2014b;Wang et al, 2015b;Wu et al, 2016), and air (Zhou et al, 2014b;Xie et al, 2007;Schlabach et al, 2011). The highest levels of TBBPA in Chinese soil were found in a BFR manufacturing area in Shouguang, Shandong (1.64-7758 ng/g dw) (Zhu et al, 2014).…”

Environmental Pollution of Heavy Metals in a Vietnamese Informal E-waste Processing Village

“…Although many studies have investigated the environmental pollution and human health risks caused by heavy metals exposure, most of the investigations have targeted at contamination hotspots from intensive e-waste processing activities to retrieve metals by open burning, incineration, smelting, and acid leaching [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. Incidences of heavy metal concentrations with As, Cd, Pb, Zn, and Se have been found in surface soils, plants, and ground water samples collected from Mandoli industrial area, one of the major informal e-waste recycling sites in India [16].…”