Report No DWI0412

Oct 1984

Under the EC Dangerous Substances Directive, Member States are required to reduce pollution of both fresh and salt waters, resulting from the discharge of List II substances, by the Environmental Quality Objectives (EQO) approach. The Department of the Environment have contracted the Water Research Centre to recommend Environmental Quality Standards (EQSs) for selected List II substances. This report is one of nine prepared in fulfilment of this contract.

Common uses of tin are discussed and the chemistry of inorganic tin in water reviewed. Information is presented on the concentrations of tin in the environment, with emphasis on UK and European waters and biota.

Because of the paucity of the available information it has only been possible to recommend EQS values for the protection of fish and other aquatic organisms, in both fresh and salt waters. Even where EQS values have been proposed the suitable information is extremely limited. Information on environmental concentrations is also limited and a full comparison with the EQS values proposed on the basis of the literature information has not been possible. The recommended EQS values are summarised in an annotated Table.

It is concluded that the recommended EQS values are consistent with measured concentrations in fresh and salt waters in the UK. Inorganic tin is not known to be a cause of water pollution in the UK and it seems unlikely that these proposals will cause an increase in the cost of monitoring the quality of UK waters.

Copies of this report may be available as an Acrobat pdf download under the 'Find Completed Research' heading on the DWI website.