Occurrence of endocrine-disrupting chemicals in indoor dust

Abstract

Human exposure to indoor dust enriched with endocrine-disrupting chemicals released from numerous indoor sources has been a focus of increasing concern. Longer residence times and elevated contaminant concentrations in the indoor environment may increase chances of exposure to these contaminants by 1000-fold compared to outdoor exposure. To investigate the occurrence of semi-volatile endocrine-disrupting chemicals, including PBDEs (polybrominated diphenyl ethers), PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), phthalates, pyrethroids, DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) and its metabolites, and chlordanes, indoor dust samples were collected from household vacuum cleaner bags provided by 10 apartments and 1 community hall in Davis, California, USA. Chemical analyses show that all indoor dust samples are highly contaminated by target analytes measured in the present study. Di-(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate was the most abundant (104-7630 μg/g) in all samples and higher than other target analytes by 2 to 6 orders of magnitude. PBDEs were also found at high concentrations (1780-25,200 ng/g). Although the use of PCBs has been banned or restricted for decades, some samples had PCBs at levels that are considered to be concerns for human health, indicating that the potential risk posed by PCBs still remains high in the indoor environment, probably due to a lack of dissipation processes and continuous release from the sources. Although the use of some PBDEs is being phased out in some parts of the U.S., this trend may apply to PBDEs as well. We can anticipate that exposure to PBDEs will continue as long as the general public keeps using existing household items such as sofas, mattresses, and carpets that contain PBDEs. This study provides additional information that indoor dust is highly contaminated by persistent and endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

Estimating exposures to indoor contaminants using residential dust

“…Notably, two studies of PBDE dust levels from California (Hwang et al, 2008;Zota et al, 2008) are absent from Figure 1, because BDE-209 was not analyzed. These two studies have reported some of the highest median concentrations of BDE-47 (2.7 and 2.7 mg/g, respectively) and BDE-99 (4.4 and 3.8 mg/g, respectively) in residential dust.…”

“…In Table 3, we omitted five additional studies (Vorhees et al, 1999;Hwang et al, 2008;Tue et al, 2009;Dirtu and Covaci, 2010), which measured PCBs in residential dust, but did not report individual PCB congener concentrations. Findings from these studies were qualitatively similar to those in Table 3, as the two studies from the United States (Vorhees et al, 1999;Hwang et al, 2008) found relatively high median concentrations of the sum of PCBs (sum of 65 PCBs ¼ 710 ng/g and sum of 54 PCBs ¼ 38.0 ng/g, respectively) compared with studies from Belgium (Roosens et al, 2010a) (sum of 5 PCBs ¼ 17.2 ng/g), Romania (Dirtu and Covaci, 2010) (sum of 8 PCBs ¼ 26.5 ng/g), and Vietnam (Tue et al, 2009) (sum of 34 PCBsB10 ng/g). In Figure 2, we summarize the available data presented in Table 3 and show median dust concentrations reported from each study for any of 5 major PCB congeners (PCBs 105,118,138,153,or 180) that were detected in at least 50% of dust samples.…”

DDT contamination from indoor residual spraying for malaria control

“…The results raise concerns regarding human exposure to the contaminated soil and dust, and in particular children, because of their long exposure period to these media during play activities and other behavioral characteristics e.g. ingestion of non-food items and regular hand-to-mouth contact (Paustenbach et al, 1997;Lioy et al, 2002;Butte, 2004;Roberts and Ott, 2007;Hwang et al, 2008).…”

Impact of Environmental Contaminants on Breast Cancer / Wpływ Zanieczyszczenia Środowiska Na Raka Piersi

“…A human exposure to indoor dust enriched with endocrine-disrupting chemicals released from numerous indoor sources has been a focus of increasing concern, and longer residence times and elevated contaminant concentrations in the indoor environment may increase chances of exposure to these contaminants by 1000-fold compared to outdoor exposure. For example, in indoor dust samples collected from household vacuum cleaner bags provided by 10 apartments and 1 community hall in Davis, California, USA, bis(2-ethylhexyl) benzene-1,2-dicarboxylate (DEPH) was the most abundant (104-7630 µg ·g −1 ) [144]. DEHP is a manufactured chemical commonly added to plastics and it is known as a rodent carcinogen.…”