| Electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) has become the fastest growing stream among all the solid waste around the world. In China, the amounts of e-waste increases rapidly in recent years; these e-wastes can be sourced both domestically discarded products and imported waste. The demand for materials is on the increase with expanding economy. Recycling materials from e-waste is an effective way to obtain scarce industry raw materials. There are about 80 to 90 percent of substances in e-waste are valuable and reusable. The demand for recycled materials and the potential economy benefit are promoting the development of disassembly industry of e-waste in littoral. Guiyu, Guangdong and Taizhou, Zhejiang are the two largest e-waste disassembling areas in China.Because of their excellent stability and electrical insulation, PCBs were once widely used in transformers and capacitors. In this study PCBs were determined as target compounds; LQ (the disassembly site, located in Taizhou), LA and PQ (the non-disassembly sites) in Zhejiang were selected as the sampling sites. The collected environment and human samples included: transformer oil, river water, river sediment, paddy soil, rice, eggs, fish, cord blood, milk and newborn meconium samples. Chemical analysis was performed using a HP6890 GC/ECD. Micro-EROD bioassay was used to screen for the presence of dioxin-like pollutants in extracts of cord blood, milk and meconium samples. Zebrafish exposed by transformer oil was used to assess the toxicological effects on fish. In addition, the potential health risk was estimated...
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