Activities related to environmental specimen banking in Japan

Some experiments on the preservability of chemicals in environmental samples such as atmospheric particulate matters and mussel meat have been conducted by National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan, as a preliminary study for future establishment of environmental specimen bank. NIES also has been operating a small experimental sample bank, storing several kinds of environmental samples. Closely cooperating with NIES, Environment Agency of Japan has been performing several types of nationwide environmental monitoring of chemical substances and some parts of the collected samples have been stored in the cold storage room for future use. A retrospective analysis of TBT and TPT in the fish using these stored samples showed an availability and usefulness of specimen bank for the long term monitoring of pollutants.