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tanding of plastic waste burning phthalic acid in South Asian aerosols aromatic diacid in particles globally, Ph and isophthalic (i-Ph) acids were rather minor isomers in Chennai aerosols (Pavuluri et al., 2010). t-Ph concentrations in Chennai aerosols are 10 times greater than those reported for urban aerosols (TSP) from North America and East Asia as well as marine aerosols (TSP) from the Western Pacific and Southern Ocean (Table 1). In South Asia, in particular, India, the generation of MSW is very high with a rate of 0.5–0.7 kg capita1 day1 (48 Tg per year; 1997), in which plastics account for 2–8%.>90 % of MSW are disposed into open landfillswithout regulations (Jha et al., 2008), and local residents very often set light to the garbage to avoid the stench from thewastes and the occurrence of mosquitoes that transmit malaria. Plastics may readily decompose into monomers under open-fire conditions. These monomers can be emitted to the atmosphere and adsorbed onto pre-existing particles. Interestingly, mass concentrations of t-Ph in Chen-nai aerosols were 55–1620 ng mg1 (average 466 ng mg1) in winter and 305–1890 ng mg1 (764 ng mg1) in summer. These values are comparable to those reported for smoke particles from plastic bags and wastes as stated above (Simoneit et al., 2005). These observations indicate that open burning of MSW is the major source of t-Ph in the aerosols from Chennai rather than emis-sions from fossil fuel combustion and secondary production via the oxidation of its precursor compounds. Thus, the disposal of Table 1 Concentrations of terephthalic acid (t-Ph) in atmospheric particles collected from different locations over the world.