Time: A Key Driver of Uncertainty When Assessing the Risk of Environmental Plastics to Human Health.
Time: A Key Driver of Uncertainty When Assessing the Risk of Environmental Plastics to Human Health.
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DOI：
10.1021/acs.est.1c02580
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发表时间：
2021-10-05
影响因子：
11.4
通讯作者：
Khan FR
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Halden RU;Rolsky C;Khan FR
（纳撒尼尔·霍桑，1860年）。塑料污染的“阴影”笼罩着环境和人类健康研究，但在我们试图理解、评估和减轻合成聚合物普遍存在的不利影响时，时间是一个被忽视的变量。塑料碎片已经渗透到环境中，我们在空气，水，土壤和食物中发现了它;然而，我们对环境塑料如何影响人类健康仍然只有初步的了解。在这里，我们认为，时间是主要的，但目前被低估的决定因素，阻碍了对环境塑料造成的人类健康风险的可靠评估。随着时间的推移，塑料会发生变化，影响其物理化学性质及其作为环境毒物的作用，从而为进行可靠的风险评估造成障碍（图1）。然而，时间的重要性还没有被认识到，并且其影响还没有被整合到当今塑料聚合物的生命周期和风险评估中。由常规塑料制成的新生产的消费品将具有明确定义的特性，包括已知的单体和聚合物组成、已知的尺寸、几何形状和孔隙率、已知的添加剂的内部化学性质（例如，邻苯二甲酸酯基增塑剂）和特征涂层的已知外表面化学（例如，抗菌剂、阻燃剂等）。1在环境中度过的时间改变了这一切。塑料的尺寸将从宏观塑料（直径> 5 mm）到微观塑料（> 1 μm至< 5 mm）再到纳米塑料（< 1 μm），但我们对相应变化率的了解仍然有限。聚合单体的宏观网状物破裂并变成碎片，释放出
(Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1860). The “shadow” of plastic pollution looms large over environmental and human health research, but time is an overlooked variable as we attempt to understand, assess and mitigate the adverse impacts of synthetic polymer ubiquity. Plastic debris has infiltrated the environment to a level where we find it in air, water, soil, and food; yet, we still have only a rudimentary understanding of how environmental plastics affect human health. Here, we argue that time is the principal but currently underappreciated determinant that is impeding a reliable assessment of human health risks posed by environmental plastics. Time changes plastics, impacting both their physicochemical properties and their role as environmental toxicants, thereby creating a barrier to performing reliable risk assessment (Figure 1). However, the importance of time has yet to be realized and its impact integrated into the life-cycle and risk assessments of present-day plastic polymers.A newly produced consumer product made from conventional plastic will have well-defined characteristics, including a known monomeric and polymeric composition, a known size, geometry and porosity, a known internal chemistry of additives (eg, phthalate-based plasticizers), and a known external surface chemistry of characteristic coatings (eg, antimicrobials, flame retardants, etc.). 1 Time spent in the environment changes all of this. The size of the plastic will change from macroplastic (> 5 mm diameter) to microplastic (> 1 μm to< 5 mm) to nanoplastic (< 1 μm), but our knowledge on the corresponding rate of change remains limited. Macroscopic meshworks of polymerized monomers break apart and become fragmented, 10 releasing
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