MEASUREMENT OF CONCENTRATIONS OF POLYCYCLIC AROMATIC HYDROCARBONS (PAHS) IN SANDBOXES IN 51 JAPANESE PARKS

We investigated the concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in the sand of sandboxes in 51 parks in Japan. We inspected the following 10 kinds of PAHs: fluoranthene, pyrene, benz[a]anthracene, chrysene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, benzo[a]pyrene, indeno[1, 2, 3,-cd]pyrene, benzo [ghi]perylene, and dibenz[a,h]anthracene. The PAHs that showed relatively high concentrations were fluoranthene and pyrene, at 17.2 ng/g sand and 14.9 ng/g sand, respectively, on average. While the total concentration of PAHs in most samples ranged from 1 to 120 ng/g sand, some samples showed concentrations of 400, 600, and even nearly 1500 ng/g sand. The composition ratios of PAHs of most samples were comparable, but some samples had distinctive composition ratios, suggesting that various sources of pollution existed. The main problem is that the infants playing in sandboxes cannot distinguish between sandboxes polluted by PAH levels of several hundred ng/g sand or a thousand ng/g sand. Therefore, it is essential to investigate the causes of the pollution of PAH and to take countermeasures.