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PET plastics as a Trojan horse for radionuclides
Summary
Researchers discovered that PET plastic bottles collected near a phosphate fertilizer plant had accumulated natural and artificial radionuclides, demonstrating that littered plastics can act as carriers for radioactive contaminants and pose potential health risks.
Mismanaged plastic waste interacts with secondary environmental pollutants, potentially aggravating their impact on ecosystems and human health. Here we characterized the natural and artificial radionuclides in polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles collected from the industrial littoral discharge of a phosphate fertilizer plant. The activity concentrations in littered bottles ranged from 0.47 (Tl) to 12.70 Bq·kg (Ra), with a mean value of 5.30 Bq·kg. All the human health risk assessment indices (annual intake, annual effective dose, and excess lifetime cancer risk) estimated for radionuclides associated with ingestion and inhalation of microplastics were below international safety limits. Our results demonstrated that PET can be loaded with natural and artificial radionuclides, and potentially act as a carrier to transfer radionuclides to humans, posing a new potential health risk. Increased use, mismanagement and fragmentation of plastic waste, and continued interaction of plastic waste with radioelements may lead to enhanced radiation exposure in the future.