Contamination by Brominated Flame Retardants in Soil Samples from Open Dumping Sites of Asian Developing Countries

Abstract—Brominated flame retardants have been widely used in homes, workplaces and subsequently, they have become widely dispersed in the environment. The garbage containing them is dumped in refuse dumping sites, and causes pollution. But data on their environmental concentrations are scarce. The purpose of this study is to elucidate their status of pollution in Asian developing countries ’ refuse dumping sites. The soil samples collected from those areas were analyzed for the concentrations of PBDE and HBCD. Concentrations of mono-deca BDE were 0.5–410 ng/g dry wt. and HBCD were N.D–2.4 ng/g dry wt. From our results, we found that PBDE contamination has spread in various parts of Asia but HBCD has not spread so much at present. Further studies are needed for continuous monitoring of the problems such as inflow of waste from developed countries