posted on 2020-03-11, 14:59authored byPablo A. Lara-Martín, Aurea C. Chiaia-Hernández, Miriam Biel-Maeso, Rosa M. Baena-Nogueras, Juliane Hollender
Oceans
are the ultimate sink for many of the over 100 million man-made
substances. Until now, monitoring was limited to a reduced number
of targeted persistent organic pollutants, reaching open waters mainly
via atmospheric deposition. However, the composition and fate of the
thousands of pollutants reaching the marine environment though wastewater
discharges from coastal sources remain largely unexplored. By combining
a newly developed nontarget screening (NTS) workflow and high-resolution
mass spectrometry (HRMS), we have identified over 500 sewage-derived
contaminants occurring in the ocean. Samples from the NE Atlantic
contained this anthropogenic imprint at distances over 50 km from
the coastline and >500 m depth, beyond the continental margin.
The
range of identified compounds spans from pharmaceuticals and personal
care products to food additives and industrial chemicals, including
several that have never been reported in the environment, as they
escaped conventional targeted analytical methods. Predicting the effects
of the continuous input of this chemical “cocktail”
on marine ecosystems is a formidable challenge, since 40% of the detected
compounds lack information regarding their use and ecotoxicity.