RESEARCH ARTICLE Adverse effects of oxo-degradable plastic leachates in freshwater environment Simona Schiavo 1,2 & Maria Oliviero 1 & Salvatore Chiavarini 3 & Sonia Manzo 1 Received: 5 September 2019 /Accepted: 19 December 2019 # Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020 Abstract The production of biodegradable plastics is considered to be a way to reduce plastic waste issue. Among others, oxo-degradant additives enable a faster degradation of plastics in the environment. However, the introduction of these new materials could provoke the release of substances potentially toxic in the environment. This work determined and compared the toxicity of leachates from various additivated polymers (polyethylene, PE; polypropylene, PP; polystyrene, PS) upon different test organ- isms: plants (Sorghum saccharatum, Lepidium sativum, Sinapis alba, and Vicia faba), crustacean (Daphnia magna), and lumi- nescent bacteria (Vibrio fischeri). Daphnia magna survival was mainly affected by PS and PP leachates (72% and 61% effect, respectively) while PS notably reduced the reproduction rate. On plants, only PP exerted a negative effect (S. saccharatum IG% 32.4), while V. fischeri always showed values around 50%. The data integration, through the Toxicity Test Battery Integrated Index (TBI) approach, allowed to rank the leachates toxicity as PE > PS > PP. This result could be mainly ascribable to the highest metals content in PE since no difference with organic compounds analysis was evidenced. In conclusion, since the polymers exerted dissimilar toxicity, the additive could not be considered the sole responsible of the measured toxicity, but its role in the enhancement of the virgin polymers leachates effects can be solidly hypothesized. Keywords Plastic additive . Ecotoxicological test . PE . PS . PP . Integration index Introduction Plastic materials are widely used in many branches of industry thanks to desirable features such as strength, durability, flexi- bility, and resistance to environmental weathering. However, the growing use of plastics in industry implies a growing waste production. Consequently, emphasis is being placed on material recycling and on packaging reduction (Jacobsen et al. 2018; Wróblewska-Krepsztul et al. 2018). The use of degradable materials could be an option to mitigate the envi- ronmental impact generated by plastic consumption (Bahramian et al. 2016; Spierling et al. 2018). The number of plastic materials produced and marketed as being “oxo- degradable” or “oxo-biodegradable” is increasing and manu- facturers claim that their products have improved environmen- tal outcomes (European Commission Brussels 2018). Among the used technologies to make plastics degradable, there is the incorporation of pro-degradant additives as the oxo-degradable compounds that promotes degradation. The main uses of oxo-degradable plastics include single-use plas- tic bags, refuse and compost sacks, food and clothes packag- ing, and agricultural mulch films. Their use is more prominent in the Middle East, as well as Asian countries, such as India and China (Persistence market research 2019). The pro-degradant additives contain metal salts of carboxylic acid or dithiocarbamates based on Co 2+ , Fe 2+ , Mn 2+ , or Ni 2+ (AISBL, Plastic Europe 2013) that promote the oxidation of polymeric chains, triggered by UV radiation and/or heat, follow- ed by fragmentation. Additional stabilizers (e.g., lead salts, organotin, Zn/Ca complex), in order to avoid rapid plastic deg- radation of the product when in use (commercial product), could Responsible editor: Philippe Garrigues Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-07466-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. * Sonia Manzo sonia.manzo@enea.it 1 ENEA CR Portici, SSPT-PROTER Division, P. le E. Fermi, 1, 80055 Portici, Naples, Italy 2 University of Naples Parthenope, Naples, Italy 3 ENEA CR Casaccia, SSPT-PROTER Division, via Anguillarese 301, 00123 Rome, Italy Environmental Science and Pollution Research https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-019-07466-z