Air-water exchange and risk assessment of phthalic acid esters during the early phase of COVID-19 pandemic in tropical riverine catchments of India

Chemosphere. 2023 Aug 30:140013. doi: 10.1016/j.chemosphere.2023.140013. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTGiven the increased load of waste plastic in the solid waste stream after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, we investigated the fate of selected plastic additives along open burning dumps, industrial and residential transects in tropical riverine catchments of India. Polyurethane foam disk passive air samples, surface water and community stored water (CSW) samples were collected along the Adyar River (AR), Cooum River (CR) and canals in Chennai and Daman Ganga River (DG) in Vapi. Among the quantified phthalic acid esters (PAEs), a widely used plastic additive, di-ethyl-hexyl phthalate (DEHP), was ubiquitous across all the transects. More open drains and leaching of littered single-use plastic items can be reasoned for significantly higher (p < 0.05) levels of PAEs in CR over other rivers with a dominance of di-n-butyl phthalate (DnBP). Higher ambient temperature and the prevalence of open burning of dumped plastic waste is the potential primary emission source of PAEs in these riverine catchments. Excluding highly soluble dimethyl phthalate (DMP), air-water exchange processes reflected the secondary emission of all the PAEs from the surface water along the open burning sites. Despite the cleansing effect of the oceanic air mass from the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, the average atmospheric PAE level was two-fold higher in Chennai than Vapi. Even though Vapi is ...
Source: Chemosphere - Category: Chemistry Authors: Source Type: research