A study conducted by an international team of researchers has found that in nearly 90% of the areas studied, levels of cancer-causing dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in free-range eggs exceeded EU regulatory food limits. The team reviewed data from Asia, Africa, Europe, and North and South Africa. The highest dioxin-contaminated eggs were found near an e-waste site in Agbogbloshie, Ghana; a child eating one egg from the site would ingest more dioxins than the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) considers a “tolerable intake” for five years.
Dioxins (polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and furans, or PCDD/Fs) are among the most toxic of known substances and can cause cancer. They are unintentionally released during the burning of waste and by various industrial processes, including metal production. PCBs are also carcinogenic to humans. Over the years, 1.3 million tonnes of PCBs have been used globally in electrical equipment, in buildings and for industrial applications. Both groups of chemicals are persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that are long-lasting, accumulate in living organisms, create widespread pollution globally, and are known to cause serious environmental and health problems. They are among the original “dirty dozen” substances banned and/or regulated globally under the Stockholm Convention in 2004.
Yet this new study, published in KeAi journal Emerging Contaminants , shows that, nearly two decades later, dioxins and dioxin-like PCBs remain an environmental health threat around the world.
Dr. Jindrich Petrlik is Director for Arnika – Toxics and Waste Programme, a Czech non-profit organization striving for a better environment, and an advisor on dioxins and waste to IPEN – a global network seeking a toxics-free future. He is also lead author of the study. According to Dr. Petrlik: “The toxic legacy of dioxins and PCBs continues to put our children and families at risk. We urgently need to achieve lower POP content levels in waste and a stronger implementation of the Stockholm Convention to protect our health and the environment from these long-lasting chemical threats.”
The study monitored eggs from more than 110 free-range chicken flocks near waste incinerators, metal industries, cement plants, landfills, e-waste sites, chemical plants, and other facilities. The team found that:
Dr. Roland Weber, corresponding author of the study and a consultant to UN agencies for the implementation of the Stockholm Convention, stressed that “this review of the IPEN egg studies, together with the reviewed scientific literature, highlight that we need a systematic assessment of chicken eggs and other free-range livestock around these emission sources. It also shows the need to reduce human exposures to sites that have been contaminated with POPs and other persistent pollutants”.
Eggs are often locally produced in developing countries and are an important food source as they are inexpensive and highly nutritious. Eggs are also a major pathway for human exposure to toxic chemicals from soils and are sensitive biomarkers of environmental contamination of soils.
In addition to the industrial sites, contaminated eggs were found at many sites where plastic was incinerated. Ash from incineration or metallurgical plants is often disposed of into the environment and is a common source of soil contamination. However, according to the study authors, the current standards under the Basel Convention for “low limits” of POPs allow extremely high concentrations of dioxins; for example, a single kilogram of ash is allowed to contain dioxin at a level that would make 7,000 kilograms (7 tonnes) of soil unfit for producing eggs from free-range chickens. They also point to the fact that the annual amount of dioxins in waste incineration ash exceeds the maximum amount – by up to 133 times – that the EFSA would consider a tolerable intake for the entire human population.
Some of the recommendations from the study include:
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Contact the author: Jindrich Petrlik, Jindrich.petrlik@arnika.org
The publisher KeAi was established by Elsevier and China Science Publishing & Media Ltd to unfold quality research globally. In 2013, our focus shifted to open access publishing. We now proudly publish more than 100 world-class, open access, English language journals, spanning all scientific disciplines. Many of these are titles we publish in partnership with prestigious societies and academic institutions, such as the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
Emerging Contaminants
Systematic review
Animal tissue samples
Monitoring dioxins and PCBs in eggs as sensitive indicators for environmental pollution and global contaminated sites and recommendations for reducing and controlling releases and exposure
All authors except of Peter Behnisch declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Dr. Peter Behnisch is an employee and director of Bio Detection Systems which is offering the commercial service to monitor dioxinlike activities with the DR CALUX bioassay (https://biodetectionsystems.com/). This is made transparent by his affiliation and by this declaration.