Spatial gradients of OCPs in European butter - integrating environmental and exposure information

The Stockholm Convention and the Global Monitoring Plan encourage the production of monitoring data to effectively evaluate the presence of the persistent organic pollutants (POPs) in all regions, in order to identify changes in levels over time, as well as to provide information on their regional and global environmental transport. Here we report a first step to investigate whether butter is a feasible matrix to screen with the purpose to reflect regional atmospheric air levels of POPs. The 29 organochlorine pesticides listed under the Stockholm Convention have been analyzed in 75 butter samples from Europe. The general conclusions were; total OCP concentration is lower in butter from the northern and central Europe. The spatial gradient of DDT/E and HCH is increasing in the eastern region of Europe (Romania, Bulgaria and Ukraine), dieldrin towards France and endosulfan levels were elevated on the Azores Island in the Atlantic Ocean. Four butter samples exceeded the European Maximum Residue Limit value for lindane but the other butter pesticide levels were all below the limit values. The dataset reported here can be used for the calibration of the air-grass-dairy products model which would support the feasibility to use butter as biomonitor for measuring POP levels in ambient air.

WEISS Jana;  MUELLER Anne;  VIVES I.;  MARIANI Giulio;  UMLAUF Gunther; 

2013-05-14

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG

JRC66005

0944-1344,   

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11356-012-1209-1,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC66005,   

10.1007/s11356-012-1209-1,