Estimating cumulative exposure to household plastic waste burning using silicone wristbands in rural Guatemala

ABSTRACT Household waste burning, especially of plastics, is a major environmental and health hazard in low resource countries that lack a safe, reliable waste management infrastructure to dispose of waste. In rural Guatemala, 95% of households use solid fuels, primarily wood, for cooking and 88% burn waste as the primary means of disposal. Plastic waste is burned in cookstoves, often used as kindling, and is burned in outdoor fires as a means of waste disposal. Ecolectivos is a village-level cluster randomized trial using implementation research that is implementing 12-week community-level working groups in eight intervention villages with the goal of finding alternative strategies {e.g., refusing, repur1X>5ing, recycling, communi1y clean-ui:s) that reduce household burning cl plastic waste. In the biomonitoring RCT aim of our main study, we are enrolling 400 women of reproductive age {n=200 in eight intervention villages and n=200 in eight control villages) and measuring 24-hour personal exposures to air pollution {particulate matter {PM2.5) and black carbon {BC)) and urinary biomarkers {PAHs, phthalates, bisphenols) at baseline, 4-5 and 12-13 months. In the present study, we will deploy silicone wristbands, passive samplers that measure cumulative exposures to environmental chemicals, among 100 women who are participating in the Ecolectivos trial in rural Guatemala. Silicone wristbands will be worn for 8 days by 50 women in the two control villages and 50 women in two intervention villages at baseline and again at 4-5 months {after the 12-week working groups conclude in the intervention villages). In Aim 1, we will characterize cumulative exposures to compounds {polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons {PAHs), phthalates, bisphenols, polychlorinated biphenyls, organophosphates, brominated flame retardants and PFAS Pre-cursors) extracted from the wristbands. In Aim 2 we will compare distributions of chemical compounds on the wristbands to filter-based PAHs and urinary biomarkers {phthalates and bisphenols) between women in the intervention group and the control group. The project is relevant to NIEHS's priority goal to address emerging environmental health issues. Plastic contamination is ubiquitous, yet personal exposures to burning plastic are as yet unknown.