ENEA CR Portici, SSPT-PROTER Division, P. le E. Fermi, 1, 80055, Portici, Naples, Italy.
University of Naples Parthenope, Naples, Italy.
Environ Sci Pollut Res Int. 2020 Mar;27(8):8586-8595. doi: 10.1007/s11356-019-07466-z. Epub 2020 Jan 6.
The production of biodegradable plastics is considered to be a way to reduce plastic waste issue. Among others, oxo-degradant additives enable a faster degradation of plastics in the environment. However, the introduction of these new materials could provoke the release of substances potentially toxic in the environment. This work determined and compared the toxicity of leachates from various additivated polymers (polyethylene, PE; polypropylene, PP; polystyrene, PS) upon different test organisms: plants (Sorghum saccharatum, Lepidium sativum, Sinapis alba, and Vicia faba), crustacean (Daphnia magna), and luminescent bacteria (Vibrio fischeri). Daphnia magna survival was mainly affected by PS and PP leachates (72% and 61% effect, respectively) while PS notably reduced the reproduction rate. On plants, only PP exerted a negative effect (S. saccharatum IG% 32.4), while V. fischeri always showed values around 50%. The data integration, through the Toxicity Test Battery Integrated Index (TBI) approach, allowed to rank the leachates toxicity as PE > PS > PP. This result could be mainly ascribable to the highest metals content in PE since no difference with organic compounds analysis was evidenced. In conclusion, since the polymers exerted dissimilar toxicity, the additive could not be considered the sole responsible of the measured toxicity, but its role in the enhancement of the virgin polymers leachates effects can be solidly hypothesized.
可生物降解塑料的生产被认为是减少塑料废物问题的一种方法。其中，氧化降解添加剂能够使塑料在环境中更快降解。然而，这些新材料的引入可能会引发潜在有毒物质在环境中的释放。本工作测定并比较了各种添加剂聚合物（聚乙烯、PP；聚苯乙烯、PS）浸出物对不同测试生物的毒性：植物（高粱、生菜、油菜和蚕豆）、甲壳类动物（大型溞）和发光细菌（费氏弧菌）。大型溞的生存主要受到 PS 和 PP 浸出物的影响（分别为 72%和 61%的效应），而 PS 显著降低了繁殖率。在植物上，只有 PP 表现出负效应（高粱 IG% 32.4），而 V. fischeri 始终显示出约 50%的值。通过毒性测试电池综合指数（TBI）方法进行数据整合，将浸出物的毒性按 PE > PS > PP 的顺序进行了排序。这一结果可能主要归因于 PE 中金属含量最高，因为没有证据表明与有机化合物分析有差异。总之，由于聚合物表现出不同的毒性，添加剂不能被认为是测量毒性的唯一原因，但其在增强原始聚合物浸出物效应方面的作用可以被合理假设。
