Soil contamination by brominated flame retardants in open waste dumping sites in Asian developing countries
Eguchi, Akifimi Isobe, Tomohiko Ramu, Karri In Asian developing countries, large amounts of municipal wastes are dumped into open dumping sites each day without adequate management. This practice may cause several adverse environmental conse-quences and increase health risks to local communities. These dumping sites are contaminated with many chemicals including brominated flame retardants (BFRs) such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) and hexabromocyclododecanes (HBCDs). BFRs may be released into the environment through production processes and through the disposal of plastics and electronic wastes that contain them. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the status of BFR pollution in municipal waste dumping sites in Asian developing countries. Soil samples were collected from six open waste dumping sites and five reference sites in Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam from 1999 to 2007. The results sug-gest that PBDEs are the dominant contaminants ...