Editorial: Further rare earth elements environmental dissemination: Observation, analysis, and impacts

International audience

إنجليزي. Editorial on the Research Topic Further rare earth elements environmental dissemination: Observation, analysis, and impacts Thanks to their unique properties, the so-called "rare Earth elements" (REEs) are present in daily life technological devices in all sectors, including the high-tech, automotive, energy storage, and agricultural sectors. Many new technologies have been developed to limit greenhouse gases (wind turbines and hybrid cars, etc.); these are known as greentech products, which are based on the use of these strategic elements, hitherto in negligible quantities in the environment (e.g., REE). As a result, their dissemination pathways and threats to the population are poorly understood. Therefore, the corresponding exposomes are particularly poorly characterized. REE are thus qualified as emerging pollutants, and disruptions in their (bio) geochemical cycles have already been highlighted (e.g., Kulaksız, and Bau, 2007). The disturbances are expected to increase, since the growing development of green technologies will be accompanied by an increase in their extraction (i.e., their recycling is non-existent at present, since it is less profitable than their extraction). In the European Union (EU), they are currently not extracted, even if some deposits have been identified in Denmark, Finland, Greece, Norway, and Sweden, and some are even being developed by mining companies (EURARE, 2017). The EU is reliant on REEs imports from overseas, mainly from China (McLead, 2019), which comes with related potential socioeconomic implications due to the external dependence on such strategic raw materials. Currently, the One Health effects of REEs mining (i.e., those caused by ore mine tailings and active/abandoned mines), their use, and the end-of-life of products containing REEs, such as the alteration of their biogeochemical cycles, are still unknown. This special issue aims to showcase a variety of perspectives in how REEs can be present into the environment and how REE can potentially interact with living organisms including human beings (Brouziotis et al., 2022a). It introduces a comprehensive, even if not exhaustive, collection of original research articles in topics including cerium (Ce) anomaly as a potential tracer for paleo-oceanic redox conditions (Cao et al., 2022), the