Organic pollutants in grassland soils

In the report ‘Organic pollutants in grassland soils – Part 3’, the Federal Environment Agency examined the exposure to difficult-to-degrade organic pollutants (POPs) at ten other sites. The investigated pollutant groups include perfluorinated surfactants, polybrominated diphenyl ethers and polybrominated biphenyls. The use of individual representatives of these groups of substances has been prohibited under the Stockholm Convention since 2009. The database for the mandatory monitoring of POPs is thus expanded. The analyses of soil samples from Salzburg, Tyrol, Vorarlberg and Lower Austria show elevated concentrations of one or more POPs for individual sites without obvious proximity to the issuer. The spatial concentration differences are considerable, perfluorinated surfactants and polybrominated diphenyl ethers are detected in all samples.