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Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and Hopanes in Plastic Resin Pellets as Markers of Oil Pollution via International Pellet Watch Monitoring

  • Special Issue: Indicators of Ocean Pollution
  • Published:
Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Oil pollution in the marine environment is an unavoidable problem due to chronic input from local sources, particularly in urban areas and oil spills. Oil pollution not only causes immediate physical damages to surrounding wildlife but also some components, including higher molecular weight PAHs, can persist in the environment for many years and pose insidious threats to the ecosystem. Long-term and nontargeted monitoring of oil pollution is important. This paper examines the ability of International Pellet Watch (IPW) for initial identification and monitoring of oil pollution by analysing PAHs and hopanes in plastic pellet samples collected globally by volunteers. PAH concentrations with the sum of 28 parent and methyl PAHs vary geographically, ranging from 0.035 to 24.4 µg/g-pellet, in line with the presence or absence of local oil pollution sources, such as oil refineries or oil spill sites. This suggests that PAHs can be used to monitor petroleum pollution in IPW. A colour-coded categorization for PAH concentrations within IPW monitoring also is established to facilitate data presentation and understanding. PAH concentrations are generally higher in Western Europe, especially around the North Sea shorelines, moderate in East Asia and North America, and lower in South East Asia, Oceania, South America, and Africa. Hopane concentrations, with a smaller spatial variation (1.7–101 µg/g-pellet), showed no spatial pattern. This result and the poor correlation between hopanes and PAHs suggest that hopane concentrations alone are unsuited to identify petroleum pollution. However, hopane compositions can be used for fingerprinting sources of oil pollution. Thus, both PAHs and hopanes in IPW allow for low cost, remote monitoring of global oil pollution.

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Acknowledgements

The present study was based on the support from volunteers listed in Table S1 through their collection of pellet samples and providing geographical information. The authors are grateful to all the volunteers. Collection of pellets from the North Sea region was supported by MICRO project of the European INTERREG project. Analysis of the pellet samples were financially supported by Mitsui and Co. Ltd. Environmental Fund (Project R11-G4-1053) and the Environmental Research and Technology Development Fund (Project No. 4-1502).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Organic Geochemistry (LOG), Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, Fuchu, Tokyo, 183-8509, Japan

    Bee Geok Yeo, Hideshige Takada, Junki Hosoda, Atsuko Kondo, Rei Yamashita & Mahua Saha

  2. National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), CSIR, Dona Paula, Panjim, Goa, 403004, India

    Mahua Saha

  3. Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Pakefield Road, Lowestoft, NR33 0HT, UK

    Thomas Maes

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  1. Bee Geok Yeo
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  2. Hideshige Takada
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Correspondence to Hideshige Takada.

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Yeo, B.G., Takada, H., Hosoda, J. et al. Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and Hopanes in Plastic Resin Pellets as Markers of Oil Pollution via International Pellet Watch Monitoring. Arch Environ Contam Toxicol 73, 196–206 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00244-017-0423-8

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