Inexpensive passive samplers track global pollution

by Environmental Science and Technology

The first results from a pilot test of passive air samplers demonstrate that the inexpensive technology can be used for compliance with the UN Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) treaty, according to research presented by Karla Pozo of Environment Canada at the Dioxin 2005 meeting held in Toronto in August.

The pilot testing for the Global Atmospheric Passive Sampling (GAPS) study, which began in December 2004, involves 50 sites on all 7 continents. Pozo presented results from the first 3 months of testing for PCBs and organochlorine pesticides with polyurethane foam (PUF) samplers at 29 of the sites.

The samplers show that PCB levels vary from 2 to 1000 picograms per cubic meter (pg/m3), with the highest levels in urban areas in Turkey and the Philippines, Pozo said. Although the levels of chlordane were generally low overall, she reported that high levels were detected in the Philippines. PCBs and chlordane are among the 12 chemicals on the POPs treaty.

Some of the most noteworthy data collected thus far was for pesticides that are not yet on the treaty, according to Pozo and her colleagues. For example, of all the pesticides analyzed, the levels of endosulfan I varied most widely. The highest levels were detected in rural Argentina (11,200 pg/m3) and the Canary Islands (4700 pg/m3). The levels of ?–HCH (gamma hexachlorohexane), which is used in the pesticide lindane, were elevated in rural Finland (114 pg/m3), where the compound has been banned since 1988. South Africa also registered high levels of ?–HCH (74 pg/m3).