Legacy pollutants, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), dichlorodiphenyl trichloroethane and its metabolites (DDTs), and some emerging organhalogen pollutants, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), hexabromobenzene (HBB), pentabromotoluene (PBT), 2,3,4,5,6-pentabromoethyl benzene (PBEB), 1,2-bis (2,4,6-tribromophenoxy) ethane (BTBPE), and dechlorane plus (DP), were detected in an aquatic food chain (invertebrates and fish) from an e-waste recycling region in South China. Polychlorinated biphenyls, DDTs, PBDEs, and HBB were detected in more than 90% of the samples, with respective concentrations ranging from not detected (ND)-32,000 ng/g lipid weight, ND-850 ng/g lipid weight, 8 to 1,300 ng/g lipid weight, and 0.28 to 240 ng/g lipid weight. Pentabromotoluene, PBEB, BTBPE, and DP were also quantifiable in collected samples with a concentration range of ND-40 ng/g lipid weight. The elevated levels of PCBs and PBDEs in the organisms, compared with those in non-e-waste regions in South China, suggest that these two kinds of pollutants derived mainly from e-waste recycling practices. Hexabromobenzene was significantly correlated with PBDEs, implying that HBB come from the release of e-waste along with PBDEs and/or the pyrolysis of BDE209. Most of the compounds whose trophic magnification factor (TMF) could be calculated were found to biomagnify (TMF > 1). Hexabromobenzene was also found, for the first time, to biomagnify in the present food web, with a TMF of 2.1.
(c) 2010 SETAC.