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Assessment of Lead Exposure in Thohoyandou, South Africa

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Assessment of Lead Exposure in Thohoyandou, South Africa The Environmentalist, 24, 171–178, 2004 C 2005 Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. Manufactured in The Netherlands. Assessment of Lead Exposure in Thohoyandou, South Africa JONATHAN O. OKONKWO* Professor, Research and Development, Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Technikon Pretoria, 175 Nelson Mandela Drive, Private Bag X680, Pretoria 0001, South Africa FLORA MARIBE Research Assistant, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Venda, Private Bag X5050, Thohoyandou 0590, South Africa Summary. Lead levels in different environmental media (soil, grass leaves, water, ceramics, pencil, paint, crayons and cosmetics) were determined to assess the major sources of lead exposure in Thohoyandou, South Africa. Soil and plant leaves were used as indicators of Pb pollution from vehicle exhaust emissions. After digestion with concentrated acids (HNO3, HCl and HClO4)Pbconcentrations were determined in triplicate using a flame atomic absorption spectrometer. The mean Pb concentrations at the kerb of selected busy roads were 205.5 ± 90, 273.0 ± 90 and 312.8 ± 81 µgg−1 and 154.7 ± 67, 182.9 ± 76 and 240.6 ± 66 µgg−1 for soil and plant leaves (dry weight) respectively. These concentrations were substantially higher than the values found on soils 50 m away from the roads (97.4 ± 11 µgg−1). Pb concentrations in plants collected further away from the road (50 m) were substantially lower (71.8 ± 9.0 µgg−1). The observed levels on soil are lower than the UK critical value of 500 µgg−1 for gardens and allotments; and 2000 µgg−1 for parks and open space as well as the Canadian values for agricultural (375 µgg−1), residential (500 µgg−1 and industrial (1000 µgg−1). From these data it was clear that Pb concentrations in soil samples were substantially higher than the levels obtained for plant leaves. The Pb levels in green crayons, blue crayons, pencils (from China & Germany), were 10650 ± 75.2, 8200 ± 52.4, 1160 ± 50.2, 79 ± 10.1 µgg−1 for the inner contents; and 4870 ± 58.1, 5650 ± 55.5, 1950 ± 46.6, 60 ± 12.9 µgg−1 for the outer surface paint respectively. The ceramics showed Pb levels of 630 ± 50.3 µgg−1 (saucer) and 560 ± 32.2 µgg−1 (cup), while the inner contents and outer surface paint showed 480 ± 32.4 and 318 ± 21.2 µgg−1 of Pb respectively. Early morning tap water flush gave a Pb level of 20.6 ± 5.6 µgPbl−1. This value is higher than the WHO and FDA maximum permissible concentrations of 10 µgl−1 and 15 µgl−1 respectively. Keywords: lead exposure, Thohoyandou, South Africa Introduction tetraethyl and tetramethyl lead as an anti-knock ad- ditive in petrol. Such elevated atmospheric Pb con- The widespread use of lead has resulted in high lev- centrations can pose substantial risks to humans: it els of this metal in various environmental samples. has been estimated that for each 1 µgm−3 increase Atmospheric lead concentrations for example have in airborne lead a child’s blood lead level rises be- been significantly increased as a result of the use of tween 5–6 µgdL−1 (ATSDR, 1990). Human Pb in- take can further increase due to accidental soil intake (pica behaviour of children) or due to consumption of *Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] contaminated vegetables that are in turn contaminated 172 Okonkwo and Maribe due to air pollution. Elevated blood Pb concentra- Materials and methods tions result in high blood pressure, kidney diseases, brain damage, reproductive abnormalities, coma and Sampling sites even death under certain circumstances (ATSDR, Three major roads were selected for soil and plant leaf 1990). sampling according to traffic densities as well as con- Besides contaminated air, several other media can venience of sample collection. The sampled locations contain elevated Pb concentrations that may pose risks are shown in Fig 1. Plant and soil samples were taken to humans. For example, in paint lead is present as lead between July and August 2000. chromate. Once ingested, this can be easily dissolved by gastric acid and this contributes to the bioavail- ability of the lead contained in the ingested dust or soil Sample collection contaminated by leaded paint (Hammond, 1982). Also lead pigments are used in children’s crayons and pen- Soil material Soil samples, 30 (2–3 individual sub- cils and these can contribute to the total body burden of samples) in total, were collected at 5 m intervals (1, children who tend to bite pencils and therefore ingest 5 and 10 m) from the kerb within a depth of 1 cm, chips and paint flakes. Measurement of lead-glazed ce- where there were no intervening pavements. Extrane- ramics has shown that most of the lead released comes ous substances such as dead leaves and stones were from the glaze (Muˇnoz et al., 1993). Some cosmetics removed from the soil. Approximately 100 g of soil such as eyeliners contain lead and may be a source of was removed from each sample location using a clean exposure if used on a regular basis. Lead in drinking stainless steel trowel. The samples for each sampling water may come from contamination at the source, but location were combined to give a composite sample it can also result from the water treatment and distri- mixture. These were placed in plastic bags and stored bution system. at room temperature in the laboratory until ready for In South Africa, a number of studies conducted use. Adequate care was taken during sampling to avoid on lead exposure have concentrated on vehicle emis- cross contamination of samples. Soil samples collected sions as the major source (Gobler et al., 1986, von at distances over 50 m from the roads were used to de- Schirnding et al., 1991a, 1991b; Mathee et al., 2002). termine the extent of Pb deposition further away from Consequently, studies on other sources of lead ex- the roads. posure within the South African environment have received little or no attention. In order to assess the Plant material local exposure of the population to lead, despite ve- hicle emission, other sources of lead exposure that Grass leaves were collected from 10 grass plants by can add to the total body burden need to be given cutting with a clean stainless steel pair of scissors. some attention especially in those towns where no About 100 g grass leaves (fresh weight) consisting of study has ever been conducted. Pencil, crayons, cos- a single species of grass, Themeda Trianda, were col- metics and ceramics have been selected as a result of lected at a height of1mabove ground at a distance the recent influx of goods that are suspected to con- of 5 m from the kerb. The grass leaves were placed tain toxic metals such as lead into the South African in plastic bags, taken to the laboratory, rinsed under market. These goods are sold in remote parts of the running deionised water from a 50 l plastic container country such as Thohoyandou. It is envisaged that the and then stored at room temperature in the laboratory results of this study will provide a baseline against until further use. Grass leaves of the same species were which the impact of exposure to lead via different also collected from distances over 50 m as indicated sources, particularly those mentioned above, could be above. measured in the future. In this paper we present ev- idence for the presence of lead in different environ- Ceramic ware, crayon, pencil and eyeliner samples mental media commonly found in South Africa. The present study is part of an ongoing integrated environ- Different ceramic ware, crayons, pencils and eye- mental management programme within Thohoyandou liner samples were randomly selected from products area. available in the shops in Thohoyandou. Paint flakes Assessment of Lead Exposure in Thohoyandou, South Africa 173 Figure 1.Asketch map of South Africa (bottom left) and Thohoyandou (top right) showing the sampling points. were collected from buildings within the University of was then heated and maintained at 180◦C. Additional Venda using stainless steel materials. The material was digestion solution was added as necessary. The solu- stored in plastic bags and taken to the laboratory. tion was allowed to cool; consequently the solution was filtered through a Whatman 48 filter paper into a 50 ml volumetric flask and diluted to the mark with Water samples 2MHNO3. Soil samples taken from distances beyond About 100 ml of water samples were randomly col- 50 m, were subjected to the same digestion treatment. lected from households and from the University of A blank was prepared as described above but without Venda student hostels using lead-free plastic contain- the sample. ers that had been immersed for several hours in 5% HNO and were thoroughly rinsed with deionised wa- 3 Determination of Pb in plant material ter. The collected plant biomass (100 g grass leaves fresh Determination of Pb in soil materials weight) was dried at room temperature and placed in a thermostat oven at 110◦C for 2 hours. 20 g of the dried Soil samples were first dried at room temperature, material was repeatedly ground to uniform size using a sieved through a 150 µm sieve and finally ground us- mortar. About 1–2 g of the ground sample was weighed ing a clean mortar and pestle. 2 g of the sieved, ground into a beaker and 20 ml of a 6:1 mixture of HNO3 and ◦ and oven dried (110 C for 4 h) sample was placed into HClO4 (70%) were added. The mixture was gently ◦ a 100 ml beaker to which concentrated HNO3 (3.0 ml) heated in a fume-cupboard to 70–80 C until most of and concentrated HCl (8.0 ml) were added.
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