Decabromodiphenyl ether (Deca-BDE) was officially listed in Annex A of the Stockholm Convention for persistent organic pollutants (POPs). It is necessary to establish its emission inventory to help ...reduce Deca-BDE contamination in the environment. We established a comprehensive Deca-BDE emission inventory in China. The results reveal that, from 2015 to 2017, the Deca-BDE emissions in its production source (source I) were less altered but increased annually in flame retarded plastics processing (source II), Deca-BDE-containing products usage (source III), and electronic waste (e-waste) treatment (source IV). We show that Deca-BDE emissions declined significantly in sources I and II but grew in source III and source IV from 2017 to 2018. We set up the provincial emission inventory to a gridded map on a spatial resolution of 0.25°× 0.25° latitude/longitude. The gridded inventory was incorporated into ChnMETOP model to simulate Deca-BDE concentrations in air and soil, and the modeled concentrations were compared to field-sampling data. The results show that the Deca-BDE emission inventory developed in this study agreed well with observed data, demonstrating that the Deca-BDE inventory in China developed in the present study is reliable. The inventory provides a support for quantifying human exposure risk to Deca-BDE and developing effective mitigation measures to mitigate Deca-BDE emissions.
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•Deca-BDE emissions occurred mainly in eastern and southeastern China.•A significant reduction of Deca-BDE emissions in China was identified after the 2017.•ChnMETOP simulations of Deca-BDE were performed using Deca-BDE emissions.•Deca-BDE emissions were verified by comparing modeled and measured concentrations.
To support the global monitoring plan on persistent organic pollutants (GMP) under the Stockholm Convention, 41 countries have exposed passive air samplers equipped with polyurethane foam disks ...(PUFs) to monitor perfluoroalkane substances (PFAS). The recommended procedure had PUFs exposed for three months during two years; analysis was performed in one expert laboratory to generate harmonized results. Chemical analysis using Soxhlet extraction with methanol or a 60:40 MTBE:methanol mixture, solid-phase extraction and UPLC/MSMS detection posed challenges as to matrix interference and sensitivity. Single PUFs as quarterly samples and combination of up to 4 PUFs as annual samples were analyzed; all concentrations were normalized to one PUF and 3 months exposure. Exceptionally high values (up to 36 000 pg SPFOS/PUF) were observed in nine samples from Zambia where a local source was identified. For the remaining 308 PUFs, PFOA had a higher median value (188 pg/PUF) than SPFOS (125 pg/PUF) whereas the mean value of SPFOS (254 pg/PUF) was slightly higher than the mean value for PFOA (230 pg/PUF). PFHxS concentrations were much lower in concentration and detection frequency and FOSA, as the only relevant PFOS precursor compound, showed a median value of zero. No clear regional differentiation was found.
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•350 polyurethane foam disks analyzed for PFOS and precursors, PFOA and PFHxS.•PFOS (with wide range of values) and PFOA dominate over PFHxS and other PFAS.•No correlation found between PFOS and its precursors.•Low sorption capacity of PUFs hampers analysis and quantification of PFAS.
Das schwedische Bibliotheksgesetz von 2014 ist bis heute ein wichtiger Bezugspunkt für die kontinuierliche Aushandlung des öffentlichen Auftrags und der demokratiefördernden Funktionen der ...Bibliotheken. Ausgehend von diesem Gesetz wird die konkrete bibliothekarische Arbeit in den Bibliotheksplänen der Kommunen oder einzelner Bibliotheken formuliert und reflektiert. In den Jahren 2016 bis 2021 zeugen die Pläne und Berichte von den Herausforderungen, die durch die wachsende soziale Kluft, aber auch infolge der medialen Transformation der Öffentlichkeit entstanden sind. Die Agenda der Bibliotheken erfährt derzeit eine Politisierung, was sich auf das Selbstverständnis des Bibliothekspersonals und die Lehrinhalte der Bibliotheksund Informationswissenschaften auswirken wird.
The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) aims to protect human health and the environment from POPs through a range of measures aimed at reducing and ultimately eliminating ...their releases into the environment and subsequent human exposure. Article 16 of the Convention sets the basis for a mechanism to assess the success of the activities undertaken worldwide to implement the Convention. One of major pillars for the evaluation of the effectiveness of the Convention is monitoring data obtained through the Global Monitoring Plan (GMP) for POPs.
The implementation of the GMP over the last eleven years, since the entry into force of the Convention, shows how a global treaty such as the Stockholm Convention streamlined existing monitoring efforts and triggered harmonization and further development of a global monitoring network.
In its initial stages, long term POPs monitoring programmes were available only in some parts of the globe. Over more than a decade of generation of harmonized, comparable monitoring data on 23 chemicals of global concern, a rich and extremely valuable dataset has been generated in the frame of the GMP. Long-term monitoring programmes have enlarged the scope of their activities to cover newly listed chemicals, and new programmes have emerged.
Monitoring data are broadly shared through the GMP data warehouse, the Convention's clearing-house mechanism, and through other appropriate global tools. Through its global reach, the GMP contributes to the global chemicals and waste policy agenda, supports and triggers further research initiatives, and provides information to the general public at large.
The global monitoring plan under the Stockholm Convention has generated over the last eleven years a valuable POPs dataset, supported and triggered further research and monitoring activities, while contributing to the larger global chemicals and waste policy agenda.
For the global monitoring plan (GMP) established under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), passive air samplers (PAS) equipped with polyurethane foam disks (PUFs) were ...recommended for generating comparative results on the presence of POPs in countries. One representative sampling location was designed in each of the 42 countries and the PAS/PUFs exposed for three months to collect POPs during 2017–2019. The PUFs were analyzed in three laboratories according to their chemical nature and concentrations reported per PUF and 90 ± 3 days of exposure. In total, 381 PUFs were analyzed for organochlorine pesticides (OCPs), industrial chlorinated POPs, dioxin-like POPs (dl-POPs), brominated flame retardants (BFRs), and perfluoroalkane substances (PFAS). Concentrations typically varied by a factor of up to three for a POP and often within the same geographic region or other denominator such as similar latitudes or altitudes. Maximum values were found for DDT (895 ng/PUF) in Africa, but the highest medium value was in the Latin American countries. Also, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and hexachlorobenzene (HCB) were most abundant across all parameters assessed. Noteworthy were high values in single countries, such as DDT in the Solomon Islands, toxaphene in Mexico, β-HCH and lindane in Tanzania, hexachlorobutadiene and hexabromocyclododecone in Mongolia, deca-BDE and PFOS in Zambia. Although we had two sampling locations at very high altitudes, >2000 m, we could determine increasing POPs concentrations with increasing altitudes only for HCB but not for other POPs. A general dependency on latitudes with higher concentrations towards the north and south pole could not be found, although the most northern station in Mongolia had two of the maxima and elevated values for some legacy POPs.
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•POPs measured by dedicated laboratories in 42 countries.•Legacy POPs showed higher concentrations than emerging POPs.•Exceptional high amounts of selected POPs detected occasionally.•Abundance and scale of PBDE 209 surprising.•No clear dependence of concentrations with latitude or altitude identified.
Enhanced nutrient input and warming have led to the development of low oxygen (hypoxia) in coastal waters globally. For many coastal areas, insight into redox conditions prior to human impact is ...lacking. Here, we reconstructed bottom water redox conditions and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) for the coastal Stockholm Archipelago over the past 3000 yr. Elevated sedimentary concentrations of molybdenum indicate (seasonal) hypoxia between 1000 B.C.E. and 1500 C.E. Biomarker-based (TEX86) SST reconstructions indicate that the recovery from hypoxia after 1500 C.E. coincided with a period of significant cooling (∼ 2°C), while human activity in the study area, deduced from trends in sedimentary lead and existing paleobotanical and archeological records, had significantly increased. A strong increase in sedimentary lead and zinc, related to more intense human activity in the 18th and 19th century, and the onset of modern warming precede the return of hypoxia in the Stockholm Archipelago. We conclude that climatic cooling played an important role in the recovery from natural hypoxia after 1500 C.E., but that eutrophication and warming, related to modern human activity, led to the return of hypoxia in the 20th century. Our findings imply that ongoing global warming may exacerbate hypoxia in the coastal zone of the Baltic Sea.
Ultraviolet absorbers (UVAs) are emerging pollutants of concern owing to their environmental persistence and endocrine-disrupting effects. UVAs are added to agricultural films to prevent UV-induced ...degradation, potentially leading to the release of UVAs into the soil. In this study, the occurrence of four frequently used UVAs (UV-324, UV-326, UV-328, and UV-531) in film-mulched agricultural soils (using conventional polyethylene films and biodegradable films) was investigated. Results showed that the UVA concentrations were several orders of magnitude higher in film-mulched soil (mean 91.4 μg/kg) than in unmulched soil (mean 0.08 μg/kg), indicating that mulch films are important sources of UVAs released into agricultural soil. Notably, the mean UVA concentration was up to 10 times higher in biodegradable-film-mulched soils than in polyethylene (PE) film-mulched soils; this result is consistent with our finding that the mean UVA concentration was 448 times higher in commercial biodegradable films than in PE films. In simulated migration experiments, UVAs migrated more readily into the soil from the biodegradable film than from the PE film. To our knowledge, this is the first report demonstrating that the use of mulch films may cause the accumulation of UVAs in agricultural soils as non-point sources. In particular, biodegradable plastic mulches can release more UVAs into soils.
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•UV absorber levels were much higher in film-mulched soils than in unmulched soils.•Mulch films are important sources of UV absorbers in agricultural soil.•Biodegradable mulch films contained more UV absorbers than polyethylene films.•UV absorbers are readily leached into soils from biodegradable mulch films.
To investigate the prevalence of voice disorders in the general population.
Analysis of data from the Stockholm Public Health Cohort.
A public health survey was distributed to an open cohort of ...114,538 adults >18 years of age in the area of Stockholm County, Sweden. The survey included one question about voice problems, estimating the extent of occurrence of voice problems, excluding voice problems during colds/upper airway infections. The question was tested for validity and reliability in n = 166 voice healthy individuals and n = 183 patients with benign voice lesions. The construct validity was tested against two established self-assessment questionnaires. The question was established to correspond to tiring, strain, and hoarseness. Prevalence of voice problems and correlations with age, gender, occupation, hearing, smoking, and socio-economic status were calculated.
The overall prevalence of voice disorders in the entire group was estimated to 16.9%, where 15.5% voice problems were rated to occur to a small extent and 1.4% to a great extent. Women were significantly more prone to report voice problems than men. The highest ratings of a great extent of voice problems were found in both women and men >85 years of age. As for occupation, the highest prevalence of voice problems was found in teaching and service occupations.
The prevalence of voice problems was estimated to 16.9% in the entire group. Women reported significantly more voice problems than men and voice problems were significantly more common in ages >65. This study of self-reported voice problems in a general population is one of the largest of its kind.
Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) have been measured using passive air samplers (PASs) over two years (2017–2018) in the city of Tunis within the framework of the UNEP/GEF GMP2 projects to support ...Stockholm Convention implementation. Several POPs, although banned for a long time from Tunisia, were registered in relatively high amounts in the atmospheric compartment. The most unexpected compound is hexachlorobenzene (HCB), with concentrations ranging from 5.2 ng/PUF to 16 ng/PUF. Furthermore, the current results seem to confirm the presence of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) and its transformation products and hexachlorocyclohexanes (HCHs) at relatively high concentrations (4.6 ng/PUF to 9.4 ng/PUF and 2.7 ng/PUF to 5.1 ng/PUF, respectively), followed by hexabromocyclododecane (HCBD), which varies from 1.5 ng/PUF to 7.7 ng/PUF. Nondioxin-like PCB (ndl-PCB) concentrations in Tunis were very high (62.0 ng/PUF to 419.3 ng/PUF), higher than those in other African countries participating in this project. Uncontrolled combustion seems to be one of the most important sources of the emanation of dioxin compounds dl-PCBs and Polychlorinated dibenzodioxins PCDD/polychlorinated dibenzofurans PCDF. Toxic equivalents (TEQs) ranged from 4.1 pg WHO-TEQ/PUF to 6.4 pg WHO-TEQ/PUF. The perfluorinated compounds (PFAS) and congeners of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) show relatively low amounts that remain below the African continent average. The PFAS pattern suggests a local source rather than long-range transport. These results constitute the first exhaustive work capable of providing an overview of the levels of POPs in the air in Tunis. As a result, it will be possible to set up an adequate monitoring program with specific investigations and experimental studies.
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•Banned POPs for long time were registered in relatively high amounts in the atmospheric compartment (HCB, DDT, HCHs …).•The highest concentration of ndl-PCB in Africa is recorded in Tunisia.•Uncontrolled combustion is the main source of organochlorine pollutants.•Examination of POPs levels and profiles in Tunisian air.
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