Leachable Volatile Organic Compounds From Polyethylene Plumbing Plastic Pipes: A Case Study Of Medina Al Munawarah, Saudi Arabia

The widespread of plastic piping applications in water distribution systems and home plumbing network has brought many health concern dues to the water quality deterioration from the occurrence of leachable organic pollutants into tape water. Among these pollutants, volatile organic molecules are believed to migrate easily from the popular polyethylene piping. This study aimed to screen the occurrence of volatile organic compounds leachable from plastic pipes comprising home water network system in residential homes located in Medina Al-Munawarah city. For this purpose, a total of 28 water samples were collected from different houses of various ages. The presence of Ethyl methacrylate, 1,2Dichloroethane, Dibromochloromethane, 1,2,3Trichloroethene, Xylene, pyridine ,1,1,2,2Tetrachloroethane, Benzyl chloride, 1,2Dichlorobenzene and 2Picoline were analysed. Although some of the levels of the pollutants studied were within the allowed limit, however, the level of 1,2Dichloroethane, 1,2,3Trichloroethane and 1,2Dichlorobenzene exceeded the pe rmissible levels in 62.07%, 10.34% and 13.79% of homes, respectively. The leachability study that was conducted to correlate volatile organic contaminants to plastic pipes, indicated that all the volatile compounds were migrated from the widely used polyethylene pipes. However, apart from benzyl chloride and 1, 2 dichloroethane which were detected in low levels, the other compounds not being found in source water. This initial screening confirmed that the plastic piping could be considerable source for the contamination of tape water with volatile organic compounds.