Emissions of unintentional persistent organic pollutants from open burning of municipal solid waste from developing countries

Open burning of waste is the most significant source of polychlorinated dibenzo-para-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/PCDF) in many national inventories prepared pursuant to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. This is particularly true for developing countries. Emission factors for POPs such as PCDD/PCDF, dioxin-like polychlorinated biphenyls (dl-PCB) and penta- and hexachlorobenzenes (PeCBz/HCB) from open burning of municipal solid waste in China and Mexico are reported herein. Six different waste sources were studied varying from urban-industrial to semi-urban to rural. For PCDD/PCDF, the emission factors to air ranged from 3.0 to 650 ng TEQ kg(-1) waste and for dl-PCB from 0.092 to 54 ng TEQ kg(-1) waste. Emission factors for PeCBz (17-1200 ng kg(-1) waste) and HCB (24-1300 ng kg(-1) waste) spanned a wide but similar range. Within the datasets there is no indication of significant waste composition effect on emission factor with the exception of significantly higher Mexico rural samples. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.