Researchers find little-known PCB “pretty much everywhere”
KERI HORNBUCKLE
Sci. Technol. DOI 10.1021/ In 1998, Simon Litten, a reAfter a half-century of use in es901155h). Before they began search scientist with the New products ranging from electrical their study, which is reported in York State Department of Envitransformers to caulk to paint, this issue, Rodenburg and colronmental Conservation, used a PCBs were banned in the late leagues knew PCB 11 was linked method that could detect all 209 1970s as one of the “dirty dozen” to the manufacture of an organic congeners. With this technique, persistent organic pollutants. But yellow coloring called a diarylide he found high levels of PCB 11 in a little-known PCB is turning up pigment. However, they were surwastewater in New York Harbor in water and air in cities and waprised to find it in parts of tersheds in Illinois, Nova New Jersey’s Delaware River Scotia, and New Jersey. Rewatershed where no pigment searchers suspect the manufacturers are located. chemical is even more wideIn their search for sources, spread, but do not know they discovered PCB 11 in howsor whethersit affects consumer products ranging human health or from printed newspapers to ecosystems. yellow cereal boxes and In this issue of ES&T, plastic bags. The only prodDingfei Hu and Keri ucts they tested that did not Hornbuckle of the Univercontain PCB 11 were plain sity of Iowa’s department of white paper and a manila civil and environmental enenvelope. gineering report that they “Once we started to look found PCB 11 (3,3′-dichloro- Examples of PCB profiles in paint pigments tested by Hornbuckle and Hu (top two plots), and frequency of for it, we started to find it biphenyl) “in air all over congener detection in the 15 pigments with detected pretty much everywhere,” Chicago,” says Hornbuckle PCBs (bottom plot). Rodenburg says. With levels (Environ. Sci. Technol. DOI of PCBs from other sources deand traced it to effluent from a 10.1021/es902413k). clining since the ban, she suspigment manufacturing plant. PCB 11 is one of 209 compects that PCB 11 is leaching into Hornbuckle, who knew of Litpounds, called congeners, in the water from paper and plastic. ten’s work, wondered if the PCB PCB family. As a group, PCBs acThe chemical’s pervasiveness 11 in Chicago’s air could be comcumulate in fatty tissue, and conposes challenges for both industry ing from paint. She and Hu found centrations increase in animals and water quality regulators. >50 PCBs in the pigments used in higher up the food chain. HowThese regulators set maximum three common paint brands, but ever, it is not known whether PCB daily load limits for PCBs as a PCB 11 was detected most often. 11 bioaccumulates. group, but the high quantities of “There are many questions,” PCB mixtures known by the PCB 11 in urban wastewater Hornbuckle says. “Is it toxic? trade name Aroclor were manucould make the implementation What is its major route into the factured from 1929 to 1979 for of those limits difficult, Rodenenvironment? Can pigments be commercial use in products, burg says. reformulated so they don’t prosuch as electrical transformers, If PCB 11 and other congeners duce those PCBs as byproduct? lubricants, and carbonless copy are byproducts of manufacturing, We don’t know, because we have paper. The U.S. banned them the industry may be able to eliminot studied [congeners] that after they were linked to cancer nate them by cleaning up the didn’t come from Aroclors.” and other health problems, but process, although some manufacHornbuckle suspects that PCB 11 industries were still allowed to turers have dodged tighter conis released when paint vaporizes, produce small amounts of “inadtrols by moving production to and wonders if the chemical vertent” PCBs as byproducts of other countries. could be deposited in nearby waother manufacturing processes. But PCB 11 is also symptomatic terways, including the Great In environmental monitoring, of a larger problem. “There are Lakes. however, regulators mainly more chemicals being produced If paint is not the culprit, other looked for Aroclor compounds, and invented than we’re able to pigmented products could be, acnot inadvertent byproducts, so analyze in environmental cording to Lisa Rodenburg of the PCB 11 remained “under the rasamples. At some point, you have Rutgers University Department of dar” until the late 1990s, Hornsuch a mixed soup that the synerEnvironmental Sciences (Environ. buckle says. 10.1021/es100692h
2010 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 03/18/2010
April 15, 2010 / ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 9 2753
gistic effect is greater than the individual chemical effect,” says Glenn Milstrey, director of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Bureau of Water Assessment and
Management. “We are addressing legacy pollutants [such as dioxins and PCBs] that were discharged a generation ago,” says Scott Stoner, who heads the department’s Pharmaceuticals Work
2754 9 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY / April 15, 2010
Group. “Let’s not let today’s emerging contaminants become the legacy pollutants that we leave to our children.” —BARBARA FRASER
