Modelling the oral uptake of chemicals : the role of plastic, passive diffusion and transport proteins

Oceans, seas and coastal areas are threatened by increasing amounts of plastic waste, and it has been shown that marine species ingest the plastic debris.There are concerns that ingestion of plastic debris might pose an additional exposure to persistent organic pollutants or plastic additives contained in the plastic.In order to assess this exposure, it is of crucial importance to estimate the contaminant concentration in the plastic, and to understand whether there are differences between the plastic types.We collected plastic water partition coefficients of various PCB congeners and other chlorinated chemicals, polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), brominated diphenyl ethers (BDE), alkanes, organophosphorous pesticides and carbamates, and other organic chemicals for seven plastic types: polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), high density, low density and ultra high molecular weight polyethylene (LDPE, HDPE and UHMWPE), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).Most data was available for PDMS (1060), followed by LDPE (220), and much less for the remaining plastics (73).Regression models were developed for the LDPE and PDMS, and the partitioning of the chemicals was compared to the remaining plastics.The data available support previous findings that partitioning of chemicals follows the order of LDPE HDPE PP > PVC PS, and the differences were quantified where possible.