Toxicological effects of cigarette butts for marine organisms

Waterborne Toxicity to Neotropical Invertebrates and Hazard of Cigarette Butt Leachates in Marine Environments

“…In this regard, leachates prepared in seawater with 25 and 100 CB/L exhibited high concentrations of nicotine (43 200 and 180 000 μg/L) and cotinine (402 and 1500 μg/L; Lucia et al, 2023). In addition, the alkaline flavoring agent 2‐methylindole and the plasticizer diethyl phthalate were identified in leachates prepared in both freshwater and seawater (100 CB/L) at levels associated with toxic responses measured in in vitro cell‐based assays (Xu et al, 2019).…”

“…There is limited information available in the recent literature related to the ecotoxicity of CB leachates in marine organisms to compare with our results. At the lower trophic levels (primary producers), higher EC50 values (3.38–12.4 CB/L) were observed for the bacterium Aliivibrio fischeri and the algae Phaeodactylum tricornutum , Skeletonema costatum , and Dunaliella tertiolecta exposed to leachates prepared using 25 and 100 smoked CBs, indicating a high tolerance of these species (Lucia et al, 2023). In the same study, the D‐stage veliger of Crassostrea gigas was the most sensitive test organism.…”

“…Soleimani et al (2023), analyzing a set of compounds similar to the one in the present study, prepared leachates in natural seawater using 4 CB/L and found lower concentrations for ∑PAHs (85.61 ng/L) compared with our study (161.2 ng/L), but the same PAHs were detected (naphthalene, acenaphthylene, acenaphthene, fluorene, and phenanthrene). In contrast, in leachates prepared using artificial seawater with 25 and 100 CB/L, 20 PAHs were observed at total concentrations ranging from 216 to 515 ng/L, respectively, with the highest levels found for 2‐methyl naphthalene, phenanthrene, anthracene, and pyrene (Lucia et al, 2023). Despite the differences in preparation and potential variation in cigarette composition, the present results are generally consistent (e.g., comparable values for metals and PAHs) with those of the previous studies just described assessing the contaminants present in CB leachates.…”

“…Moriwaki et al (2009) reported the release of toxic metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn) from CBs in an aqueous solution. Other groups of chemicals released at high concentrations include aromatic amines, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), carbonyls, nitrosamines, phenols, and insecticides (Lucia et al, 2023; Soleimani et al, 2023; Torkashvand et al, 2020). Therefore, CB leachates are a complex mixture of substances that should be addressed as emerging contaminants originating from an unhealthy lifestyle, with no benefit and high cost for clean‐up (Green et al, 2023).…”

An innovative index to incorporate transcriptomic data into weight of evidence approaches for environmental risk assessment

“…However, mostly because of difficulties in generating and interpreting transcriptomic data consistently under a common framework (Verheijen et al, 2020), transcriptomics has served primarily as a qualitative tool. Also in recent WoE applications, transcriptional evidence was evaluated qualitatively without taking part in the weighted integrative process (e.g., Mezzelani et al, 2021;Schmitz et al, 2022;Lucia et al, 2023). This represents a missed opportunity for transcriptomics, and -omics data in general, to be considered within QWoE approaches for environmental risk assessment (ERA) and regulatory purposes (Soufan et al, 2022).…”