PRTRs for science and education Louise Sörme Statistics Sweden

Total impact? Changing?  How is the impact of chemicals changing?  Better?  Worse?  Method and data?

PRTR - goldmine of data!  But cooperation between organisations and professions was needed  Basis for the work

Method  Data from E-PRTR (Sweden) Releases to air and water  Reallocation to products using System of Environmental Accounts (SEEA)  Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) by USEtox to retreive impact from industry and products - Human toxicity - Freshwater ecotoxicity

Results: Substances-human toxicity SubstanceCTUh kg Zinc and compounds (as Zn), air370 Zinc and compounds (as Zn), water120 Mercury and compounds (as Hg), air91 Arsenic and compounds (as As), water39 Chromium and compounds (as Cr), air34 Lead and compounds (as Pb), air28 Chromium and compounds (as Cr), water21 Arsenic and compounds (as As), air8.3

Results: Industries-human toxicity CTUh kg

Discussion and conclusion  Dominance of metals - Characterization factors - Persistent - Often measured  Agriculture in general is lacking data  Yes – method to estimate chemical impact  More work is needed – add more data  Ongoing project financed by Swedish EPA to continue the work

Thank you for your attention! Louise Sörme Link to the article: S S