| Summary: | Dbdpe has been produced and used for more than 20 years (Umweltbundesamt, 2001). Presumably there have been considerable emissions to the environment. Nevertheless, few scientific studies have been conducted on the environmental behaviour of dbdpe since its introduction to the market. The main objective of this report is therefore to contribute to scientific understanding of the environmental behaviour and occurrence of dbdpe. The work will help to clarify whether dbdpe poses a threat to human health and wildlife. This report is built upon three studies. The first is a screening study of dbdpe in sediments from remote Swedish lakes. The objective of that screening survey was to determine whether dbdpe is present in Swedish lake sediments, and thereby available to the organisms dwelling there. Furthermore, the presence of dbdpe in remote lakes would indicate that long range atmospheric transport and deposition of dbdpe had occurred, because the remote lakes are not expected to have any point sources of BFRs. In the second study, marine sediments along a transect from Stockholm Harbour to the outer archipelago were analyzed for dbdpe. Wastewater treatment plants in Stockholm had been shown to emit dbdpe to Stockholm Harbour. The primary objective of this study was to determine if the marine benthic ecosystem outside Stockholm is exposed to dbdpe, and if so, how far out in the archipelago this exposure reaches. In the third study, Peregrine falcon eggs were analyzed for dbdpe. The eggs of this top predatory bird were hypothesized to be early indicators of dbdpe in Swedish wildlife, since they previously have been shown to accumulate high levels of decaBDE. A comparison of dbdpe and decaBDE concentrations in Peregrine falcon eggs would give information about the relative bioaccumulation potential of these two chemicals.
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