In the last years, the number of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) has increased and consequently, sewage sludge production. This residue is very rich in crop nutrients, which makes it prone to be used as organic fertilizer or soil conditioner for agriculture. However, the presence of emerging pollutants in these fertilizers has raised concern, namely their potential accumulation in soil and, eventually their uptake by crops. Therefore, the main goal of this work was to study the potential plant uptake and translocation of ultraviolet-filters (UVFs) and synthetic musk compounds (SMCs). A total of 6 UVFs and 11 SMCs were analysed in Micro-Tom tomatoes grown in soil amended with a commercial sewage sludge-based organic fertilizer. Most of the studied compounds were detected in the tomato fruit, in concentrations ranging from 5 to 147 ng g-1 dw for UVFs and from 1.3 to 68 ng g-1 dw for SMCs. This indicates a potential uptake of these emerging pollutants and a subsequent translocation to the fruits. Besides that, UVFs show bioconcentration factors (BCFs) from 3 (DTS) to 33 (BZ) and SMCs from 0.2 (AHTN) to 23 (HHCB). Nevertheless, no risk by ingestion was observed based on estimation of the weekly exposure dose through hazard quotients (HQ < 0.02). SMCs galaxolide and tonalide seem to pose risk to the amended soils.
Keywords: Plant uptake; Sewage sludge amended soils; Synthetic musk compounds; Tomatoes; UV-filters.
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