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National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

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Your Environment. Your Health.

Publication Detail

Title: Microplastics in house dust from 12 countries and associated human exposure.

Authors: Zhang, Junjie; Wang, Lei; Kannan, Kurunthachalam

Published In Environ Int, (2020 01)

Abstract: Global marine pollution by microplastics (MPs) has received considerable attention in recent years. Nevertheless, little is known about the occurrence of MPs in indoor environments. A novel analytical method was used to quantitatively determine polyethylene terephthalate (PET)- and polycarbonate (PC)- based MPs in 286 indoor dust samples collected from 12 countries. PET-based MPs were detected in all dust samples at concentrations of 38-120,000 µg/g (median: 5900 µg/g), whereas PC-based MPs were measured at <0.11-1700 µg/g (median: 8.8 µg/g). Significant positive correlations were found between the concentrations of terephthalic acid (a PET monomer) and PET as well as between bisphenol A (a PC monomer) and PC. Based on the concentrations of MPs measured in indoor dust, the median daily intake of PET-based MPs calculated for infants was in the range of 4000-150,000 ng/kg-bw/day.

PubMed ID: 31756678 Exiting the NIEHS site

MeSH Terms: Air Pollution, Indoor/analysis*; Dust/analysis*; Environmental Exposure/analysis*; Environmental Monitoring; Humans; Infant; Microplastics/analysis*; Polycarboxylate Cement; Polyethylene Terephthalates

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