Chemicals of emerging concern in household products : a case study on the disposal of cosmetics in the United Kingdom

Household products may contain chemicals of emerging concern (CECs) and their use and disposal can contribute to CECs being released to the environment with the potential to cause concern. Cosmetic products were used to exemplify the source-pathway-effect relationship for CECs, by investigating the use of cosmetics as a prospective pollutant source, their disposal, as a pathway for environmental contamination and, the potential need for effective management of CECs in products. Emphasis was placed on the Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) legislation as a framework to consider the use of regulation to facilitate the assessment and management of CECs in household products. The CECs present in cosmetic products were identified, validated and quantified and, their potential environmental risks were assessed using a methodology developed under the REACH legislation guidelines. Findings demonstrated that once released in the environment, nanomaterials and triclosan have the potential to affect both aquatic and terrestrial organisms. Multi-criteria analysis was used to assess alternative risk management options for the use and disposal of these CECs in cosmetic products. The analysis indicated the need to manage some CECs in cosmetics to minimize the potential for environmental contamination. REACH has the potential to facilitate the management of these chemicals by shifting the legislative focus from disposal to prevention and minimization. The guidelines under REACH could be amended to improve the risk assessment and management process for CECs. This research demonstrated the efficacy of modifying the guidelines to produce sound assessments, whilst emphasising the need for effective management of CECs in cosmetic products.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

The sources and environmental fate of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in lowland river catchments

The presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) and their potential to induce adverse biological effects in aquatic environments has been the subject of increased scientific and public interest. Over the last thirty years, a range of PPCPs including antibiotics, antidepressants, antimicrobials, cardiovascular drugs, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and phthalates have been found in water bodies all over the world. Unlike many other potential pollutants, there are currently no consent standards on concentrations for most pharmaceuticals that can be discharged to the environment. This environmental concern therefore creates the need to understand the source inputs and the environmental fate mechanisms responsible for removing these PPCPs from the aquatic environment. As a result, this thesis aimed to further knowledge of the sources and environmental fate of PPCPs using the principles of the Water Framework Directive to deliver holistic understanding to water policy issues. This new approach to source assessment is useful for developing more realistic site specific environmental risk assessments that can identify catchments and causes of environmental concern. Further research regarding source assessment addresses nursing homes as a relatively understudied source and compares the consumption of drugs to residential households to find that nursing homes have the potential to input more pharmaceuticals to the aquatic environment. In light of the new sources, the next step was to study the aquatic fate of PPCPs. Experimental fate studies show degradation rates and removal mechanisms are influenced by the environmental conditions of the catchment. The findings of the research aimed to facilitate catchment management of PPCPs and inform future water policy.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Pharmaceutical residues in sewage treatment works and their fate in the receiving environment

Pharmaceuticals are increasingly used in large amounts in human (and veterinary) medicine around the world. They reach the aquatic environment mainly through sewage treatment systems and can reach mg l×1 levels. The continual input of pharmaceuticals to the aquatic environment, via sewage, can also impart a persistent quality to compounds that otherwise possess no inherent environmental stability. While the literature contains increasing numbers of studies detailing fate, effects and behaviour in the environment, the subject is still not fully understood for all the different therapeutic classes. The toxicological significance for non-target (especially aquatic) organisms is poorly understood. The use/release of antibiotics and natural/synthetic steroids to the environment has generated most of the concern to date, but a plethora of other drugs are increasingly attracting attention, as their biological activity alone may support ecotoxicity assessments of those compounds with high production volumes (or toxicity), especially in view of the increasing importance of freshwater resources. Pharmaceuticals display a variety of removal efficiencies during wastewater treatment and their fate and behaviour are not determined by their physicochemical properties alone. Despite the fact that many drugs have high sorption potentials, partitioning to the solid phase was determined to be an unlikely removal pathway for the majority of compounds. The partitioning behaviour of these compounds both in sewage treatment and the aquatic environment is likely to be dictated by a number of physicochemical parameters. Findings also indicate that the costs of using tertiary treatment options (mainly based on drinking water treatment) to remove drugs from wastewater effluent are likely to be prohibitively expensive, and potentially undesirable, due sustainability implications. While adjusting existing treatment parameters may increase the removal efficiencies of pharmaceuticals, any changes to sewage treatment parameters would need to be offset against the economic and environmental costs. Likewise, any regulations on drug use must be balanced against health benefits. If receiving waters are used for potable supplies, the presence of these compounds may (although it is unlikely) represent a potential hazard to human health, especially in areas without advanced water treatment. The focus for future research should therefore be on proper and sufficient science for establishing the occurrence, exposure and effects of pharmaceuticals in the environment, so that sound decisions can be made regarding human and ecological health

Potential impact of pharmaceuticals on environmental health.

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Antimicrobial manufacturing waste

The threat of antimicrobial-resistant microbes in the environment is a global issue, but the incidence of environmental contamination varies greatly from country to country and region to region. As a shared global challenge, it will be important to have a globally led approach with locally relevant interventions. Moving forward, stakeholders can work to understand their local situation, determine what action is both beneficial and feasible, and move toward reducing identified risks to public health

Strengthen the European collaborative environmental research to meet European policy goals for achieving a sustainable, non-toxic environment

International audienceTo meet the United Nations (UN) sustainable development goals and the European Union (EU) strategy for a non-toxic environment, water resources and ecosystems management require cost-efficient solutions for prevailing complex contamination and multiple stressor exposures. For the protection of water resources under global change conditions, specific research needs for prediction, monitoring, assessment and abatement of multiple stressors emerge with respect to maintaining human needs, biodiversity, and ecosystem services. Collaborative European research seems an ideal instrument to mobilize the required transdisciplinary scientific support and tackle the large-scale dimension and develop options required for implementation of European policies. Calls for research on minimizing society’s chemical footprints in the water–food–energy–security nexus are required. European research should be complemented with targeted national scientific funding to address specific transformation pathways and support the evaluation, demonstration and implementation of novel approaches on regional scales. The foreseeable pressure developments due to demographic, economic and climate changes require solution-oriented thinking, focusing on the assessment of sustainable abatement options and transformation pathways rather than on status evaluation. Stakeholder involvement is a key success factor in collaborative projects as it allows capturing added value, to address other levels of complexity, and find smarter solutions by synthesizing scientific evidence, integrating governance issues, and addressing transition pathways. This increases the chances of closing the value chain by implementing novel solutions. For the water quality topic, the interacting European collaborative projects SOLUTIONS, MARS and GLOBAQUA and the NORMAN network provide best practice examples for successful applied collaborative research including multi-stakeholder involvement. They provided innovative conceptual, modelling and instrumental options for future monitoring and management of chemical mixtures and multiple stressors in European water resources. Advancement of EU water framework directive-related policies has therefore become an option