Plastics as sources of new global pollutants

GEOC 72

Keiji Amamiya, saidophd@pha.nihon-u.ac.jp1, Tadashi Itagaki2, Yoichi Kodera, y-kodera@aist.go.jp3, Seon-Yong Chung, sychung@chonnam.ac.kr4, Osamu Abe, turtlea@affrc.go.jp5, Naoto Ogawa, naotow@niaes.affrc.go.jp6, Kiyotaka Miyashita6, and Katsuhiko Saido, Saidophd@pha.nihon-u.ac.jp2. (1) College of Pharmacy, Nihon Univ, 7-7-1 Narashinodai, Funabashi, 274-8555, Japan, (2) College of Pharamacy, Nihon University, 7-7-1 Narashinodai, Funabashisi, 274-8555, Japan, (3) Hydrocarbon Utilization Research Group, AIST, 16-1 Onogawa, Tukubashi, 3050034, Japan, (4) College of enginnering, Chonnam Natuional Univ, Gwang-ju, South Korea, (5) Fisheries Research Agency, 148-446, Fukai Oota, Ishigaki, 907-0451, Japan, (6) NIAES, Kannondai 3-1-3, Tukubashi, 3058309, Japan
Up to the present, plastics have been considered chemically stable and hygienically safe materials. Still, polymer degradation in nature remains but little understood. The authors thus established a novel method for determining various kinetic parameters involved in polymer degradation at low temperature and the results obtained clearly indicate low molecular weight products to be generated from numerous polymers at 30 -50 °C. Waste plastics are generally disposed off underground and they may also be carried by water into the ocean with consequently very wide distribution.Plastics constitute the main content of garbage present in marine debris. Possibly, plastic degradation occurs gradually in water bodies or along sea shores with consequent release of various pollutants such as BPA. Simulation study has indicated that low molecular weight pollutant elution from polystyrene will come to be in excess 30 thousand tons a year within the next 100 years.
 

Geochemistry Poster Session
6:00 PM-8:00 PM, Wednesday, August 22, 2007 BCEC -- Exhibit Hall - B2, Poster

Division of Geochemistry

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007