Sediment Water Exchange Processes and Ecotoxicological Risk Assessment of Selected Plastic Additives in the Hooghly River Estuary and Sundarban Wetland along the Bay of Bengal

Abstract

Pollution of the aqueous environment by plastic derived additives added to plastic and plastic products solely used to improve their performance, process ability, functionality and duration of the material have become a rising concern among the scientific community. Plastic additives may include an array of compounds ranging from plasticizers (phthalic acid esters (PAEs), adipates) to flame retardants. Moreover, some plastic additives such as bisphenol A (BPA) are also used as monomer for polycarbonate and stabilizers. Both PAEs and BPA are high volume chemicals and due to their ubiquitous presence in various environmental matrices coupled with their endocrine disrupting effect have become a serious issue. Wastewater discharges along with leaching from plastic debris have been constantly identified as the prominent sources of the aforementioned chemicals in the aqueous phase newline