Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER FIVE
Impacts of emerging contaminants
on the environment
ALISTAIR BOXALL
Introduction
Until very recently, the main focus on chemicals in the environment has been
on heavy metals, pesticides and other organic chemicals such as PAHs, PCBs
and dioxins. In recent years, there has been increasing concern over the so-
called 'emerging contaminants' such as metabolites, transformation products
(formed in the environment and treatment processes), human pharmaceu-
ticals, veterinary medicines, nanomaterials, personal care products and flame
retardants. These substances have been shown to be released to the environ-
ment, or in the case of nanomaterials, will be released to the environment in
increasing amounts in the future. In the few monitoring studies that have
looked for them, they have been detected in surface waters, groundwaters and
drinking waters (e.g., Kolpin et al. 1998a , b ; 2002 ; Ferrer et al. 2000 ; Juhler et al.
2001 ;Liet al. 2001; Schnoebelen et al. 2001 ; Lagana et al. 2002 ; Zimmerman et al.
2002 ; Battaglin et al. 2003 ).
Alongside the monitoring, studies have been performed to explore the
effects of a range of emerging contaminants at the biochemical, cellular, whole
organism, population and community levels. While much of the data that have
been produced on different classes of emerging contaminants indicate that
many pose a small risk to ecosystems and human health, there is some
evidence that selected emerging contaminants could affect human and envi-
ronmental health. For example, the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug
diclofenac was found to be responsible for the decline in populations of vulture
species in Asia (Oaks et al. 2004 ); the antiparasitic drug ivermectin has been
shown to affect invertebrates at concentrations lower than those that could
occur in the aquatic environment (Garric et al. 2007 ); ethinylestradiol has
been associated with endocrine disruption in fish (Lange et al. 2001 ); and there
is concern that long-term exposure to antibacterial pharmaceuticals may be
contributing to the selection of resistant bacteria (Boxall et al. 2003a ).
 
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