Occurrence of and human exposure to parabens, benzophenones, benzotriazoles, triclosan and triclocarban in outdoor swimming pool water in Changsha, China

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2017-12, Vol.605-606, p.1064-1069
• Main Authors: Lu, Jing, Mao, Huiyue, Li, Haipu, Wang, Qiang, Yang, Zhaoguang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Health risk assessment; Occurrence; Outdoor swimming pools; Personal care products
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.06.135

•The concentrations of four categories of personal care products (PCPs) in outdoor swimming pools were determined.•The occurrence of benzotriazoles in swimming pools was first reported.•Preservatives were found to be the major PCPs contaminant in swimming pools.•Among the PCP sources to pools, input tap waters was found to be less significant.•Health risks of the exposure to PCPs while swimming through ingestion or dermal absorption were at safe levels. [Display omitted] The entry of personal care products (PCPs) into the environment has, in turn, caused negative influences to human health. Public swimming pools are places that have attracted increasing concerns. In this article, 35 outdoor swimming pools in Changsha City (China) were examined in view of the occurrence of 22 target PCPs contaminants, which fall into four categories: preservatives, UV filters, anticorrosion agents, and antimicrobials. Out of them, 16 compounds were detected in the collected samples. The preservatives was the most dominant category, with methyl paraben being the top compound (a.v. 0.85μg/L) followed by p-hydroxybenzoic acid (a.v. 0.13μg/L) and 1H-benzotriazole (a.v. 0.14μg/L). The correlations among 22 PCPs and their four categories were evaluated using the nonparametric Spearman correlations analysis. In the source tracing investigation, the level of PCPs in swimming pools was determined to be primarily associated with the consumption of these products while weakly related to the filling waters. The quantitative risk assessment revealed that the PCPs concentrations were at a safe level.