Occurrence of selected pharmaceuticals in wastewater treatment plants of Tuscany: An effect-based approach to evaluate the potential environmental impact.

Occurrence of selected pharmaceuticals in wastewater treatment plants of Tuscany: An effect-based approach to evaluate the potential environmental impact. Int J Hyg Environ Health. 2019 May 14;: Authors: Palli L, Spina F, Varese GC, Vincenzi M, Aragno M, Arcangeli G, Mucci N, Santianni D, Caffaz S, Gori R Abstract Municipal wastewaters may pose a risk to the aquatic environment and ultimately to human kind. Their treatment is a fundament step but the actual WWTPs performances cannot be taken for granted, claiming instead for continuous evaluation campaigns. Our waters are indeed threatened by the continuous input of various persistent micropollutants that are part of human daily routine life; the potential effects of their presence in the receiving waters have to be quantified. The present paper reports data of a monitoring campaign focused on nine pharmaceuticals belonging to different therapeutic groups in three WWTPs in Tuscany (Italy). All the three WWTPs use conventional activated sludge process with pre-denitrification and no tertiary treatment. The analytical determination has been achieved through off-line solid phase extraction and analysis in liquid chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry. The overall ecotoxicological effect of effluents was evaluated through a battery of tests using organisms belonging to different trophic levels. All nine pharmaceuticals were detected in the influent of all WWTPs at least in one sam...
Source: International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental health - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Int J Hyg Environ Health Source Type: research