A new study documents how Southern Californians are chronically being exposed to toxic airborne chemicals called plasticizers, including one that’s been banned from children’s items and beauty products.

一项新的研究记录了南加州人如何长期暴露于被称为塑化剂的有毒空气化学物质中，其中一种被禁止用于儿童用品和美容产品。

Plasticizers are chemical compounds that make materials more flexible. They are used in a wide variety of products ranging from lunchboxes and shower curtains to garden hoses and upholstery. 

增塑剂是一种使材料更有弹性的化合物。它们被广泛用于各种各样的产品，从午餐盒和浴帘到花园软管和室内装潢。

“It’s not just for drinking straws and grocery bags,” said David Volz, environmental sciences professor at UC Riverside, and corresponding author of a paper about the study published in the journal Environmental Research. 

加州大学河滨分校的环境科学教授大卫·沃尔兹说：“这不仅仅是为了喝吸管和购物袋。”他是一篇发表在《环境研究》杂志上的关于这项研究的论文的通讯作者。

Previous California monitoring programs focused on plasticizers called ortho-phthalates, some of which were phased out of manufacturing processes due to health and environmental concerns. Less research has focused on the health effects of their replacements, called non-ortho-phthalates. 

加州以前的监测项目主要集中在一种叫做邻苯二甲酸酯的增塑剂上，由于对健康和环境的担忧，其中一些增塑剂已经逐步退出了生产过程。很少有研究关注它们的替代品，即非邻苯二甲酸盐对健康的影响。

This study revealed the presence of both types of plasticizers in the air throughout Southern California.

这项研究揭示了南加州空气中两种类型的增塑剂的存在。

“The levels of these compounds are through the roof,” Volz said. “We weren’t expecting that. As a result, we felt it was important for people to learn about this study.”

Volz说：“这些化合物的含量已经突破了顶峰。我们没料到会这样。因此，我们觉得让人们了解这项研究很重要。”

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences also wants to increase the visibility of this study, one of only a few to document the phthalates’ presence in the air of urban environments. The institute’s monthly newsletter, Environmental Factor, highlights the study in their October 2024 issue.  

国家环境健康科学研究所也希望提高这项研究的知名度，这是仅有的几项记录城市环境空气中邻苯二甲酸盐存在的研究之一。该研究所的月刊《环境因素》（Environmental Factor）在2024年10月的一期中重点介绍了这项研究。

The researchers tracked two groups of UCR undergraduate students commuting from different parts of Southern California. Both groups wore silicone wristbands designed to collect data on chemical exposures in the air. 

研究人员追踪了两组来自南加州不同地区的UCR本科生。两组人都戴着硅胶腕带，旨在收集空气中化学物质暴露的数据。

The first group wore their wristbands for five days in 2019, and the second group wore two different wristbands for five days each in 2020. Both groups wore the bands continuously, all day, as they went about their activities. At the end of the data collection period, the researchers chopped the wristbands into pieces, then analyzed the chemicals they contained. 

第一组在2019年戴了五天腕带，第二组在2020年各戴了五天不同的腕带。这两组人在进行活动时，整天都不间断地戴着腕带。在数据收集期结束时，研究人员将腕带切成碎片，然后分析其中所含的化学物质。

In a previous paper, the team focused on TDCIPP, a flame-retardant and known carcinogen, picked up in the wristbands. They saw that the longer a student’s commute, the higher their exposure to TDCIPP. 

在之前的一篇论文中，研究小组专注于TDCIPP，一种阻燃剂和已知的致癌物质，从腕带中提取。他们发现，学生的通勤时间越长，他们接触到的TDCIPP就越高。

Unlike TDCIPP, which most likely migrates out of commuters’ car seats into dust, the team cannot pinpoint the origin of the plasticizers. Because they are airborne, rather than bound to dust, the wristbands could have picked them up anywhere, even outside the students’ cars.

与TDCIPP不同，TDCIPP最有可能从通勤者的汽车座椅上迁移到灰尘中，该团队无法确定增塑剂的来源。因为它们是通过空气传播的，而不是附着在灰尘上的，所以腕带可以在任何地方发现它们，甚至是在学生的车外。

For every gram of chopped-up wristband, the team found between 100,000 and 1 million nanograms of three phthalates, DiNP, DEHP, and DEHT. Ten total plasticizers were measured, but the levels of these three stood out.

在每克切碎的腕带中，研究小组发现了10万到100万纳克的三种邻苯二甲酸盐，DiNP， DEHP和DEHT。总共测量了十种增塑剂，但这三种增塑剂的含量尤为突出。

Both DiNP and DEHP are included on California’s Proposition 65 list, which contains chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm. DEHT was introduced as an alternative, but its effects on human health have not been well studied. 

DiNP和DEHP都被列入加州65号提案清单，该清单中含有已知会导致癌症、出生缺陷或其他生殖危害的化学物质。DEHT作为替代品被引入，但其对人类健康的影响尚未得到很好的研究。

This study suggests that introducing DEHT also has not done much to reduce the public’s level of exposure to DiNP or DEHP. Levels of all three chemicals found by Volz and his team were similar to those found by researchers in unrelated studies conducted on the East Coast. 

这项研究表明，引入DEHT对降低公众对DiNP或DEHP的暴露水平也没有多大作用。Volz和他的团队发现的这三种化学物质的水平与研究人员在东海岸进行的不相关研究中发现的水平相似。

Despite differences in climate, the air on both coasts is likely carrying similar levels of phthalates.

尽管气候不同，但两岸的空气中邻苯二甲酸盐的含量可能相似。

“No matter who you are, or where you are, your daily level of exposure to these plasticizer chemicals is high and persistent,” Volz said. “They are ubiquitous.”

Volz 说：“无论你是谁，或者你在哪里，你每天接触这些增塑剂化学物质的水平都很高，而且持续存在。它们无处不在。”

To Volz, studies like this one amplify the need to find alternatives to plastic. As plastics degrade, these compounds and others like them are leaching out into the environment and into the body. 

对Volz来说，像这样的研究放大了寻找塑料替代品的必要性。随着塑料的降解，这些化合物和其他类似的化合物会渗透到环境中，进入人体。

“The only way to decrease the concentration of plasticizers in the air is to decrease our production and consumption of materials containing plasticizers,” he said. 

“降低空气中增塑剂浓度的唯一方法是减少含有增塑剂的材料的生产和消费，”他说。