Uptake and fate of Di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate in aquatic organisms and in a model ecosystem.

Di-2-ethylhexyl phthalate (DEHP), often referred to as dioctyl phthalate or DOP, is the most widely used plasticizer for vinyl plastics, and approximately 350 million pounds were produced in the United States during 1970.Altogether the production of phthalate ester plasticizers was 855 million pounds (1).The cumulative production of DEHP and related phthalate plasticizers in the United States since 1943 is in excess of 8000 million pounds (2).DEPH is an external plasticizer which softens resins without reacting with them chemically, and it may be present in concentrations up to 40% of the weight of the plastic as in the familiar laboratory tubing.As a result of the large production and wide distribution and destruction of plastics, DEHP has become uniquitous and has been found in milk (3), deep frying fat (4), and human blood plasma (5).DEHP has also begun to appear as a micropollutant in the tissues of a variety of organisms.Taborsky (6) isolated it from bovine pineal glands, and Nazir et al. (7) found it in mitochondria from the hearts of cattle, dogs, rabbit, and rat.DEHP has been