Sandy beaches as hotspots of bisphenol A

Bum Gun Kwon; Seon-Yong Chung; Katsuhiko Saido

doi:10.1016/j.envres.2020.110175

Sandy beaches as hotspots of bisphenol A

Environ Res. 2020 Dec:191:110175. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.110175. Epub 2020 Sep 12.

Authors

Bum Gun Kwon¹, Seon-Yong Chung², Katsuhiko Saido³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Bioenvironmental and Chemical Engineering, Chosun College of Science and Technology, 309-1, Pilmundae-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju, 61453, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: kwonbg0@daum.net.
² Department of Environment and Energy Engineering, College of Engineering, Chonnam National University, 77 Yongbong-ro, Buk-gu, Gwangju, 500-757, South Korea.
³ National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba, Japan; Department of Applied Molecular Chemistry, College of Industrial and Technology, Nihon University (CIT & CST), 121 Izumi Narashimo, Chiba, 2758575, Japan; Albatross Alliance, Chiba, Japan.

PMID: 32931789
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2020.110175

Abstract

Bisphenol A (BPA) poses a serious environmental threat and health concern. This study presents the global monitoring of BPA on oceanic sandy beaches. According to monitoring results, many beach sands contain a harmful concentrations of BPA. Likewise, styrene oligomers (SOs), anthropogenic chemicals derived from polystyrene plastics, show similar concentrations as BPA. This study shows a strong, positive correlation between BPA and SOs. The results indicate that probably BPA-containing materials including micro- and nano-plastics can be an important source of BPA to the sand beaches. Therefore, BPA presents potential health risks to people spending considerable time on the beach.

Keywords: BPA; Plastics; SOs; Sandy beach; Styrene oligomers.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Benzhydryl Compounds
Environmental Monitoring*
Humans
Phenols / toxicity
Plastics*

Substances

Benzhydryl Compounds
Phenols
Plastics
bisphenol A