Selected Water Quality Processes in Rivers and Streams - Hydro-Environmental Analysis: Freshwater Environments - page 158

Pharmaceuticals, personal care products, and chemicals of concern

Land application
(manure, urine)

Hormonally
active (endocrine
disruptors)

Livestock

Eating, drinking

Central
nervous system
disruptors

Eating,
Drinking

Farming,
food preservation

Antibiotics

People

Land
application

“Persistent”
bioaccumulative
toxins

Eating, drinking
(phthalates in
plastic containers)

Disposal
(unused)

Products

Leachate

Others

Recycling,
disposal

Wastewater
treatment

Septic tanks

Chemical groups

Initial use

Leachate

Primary pathway to
people/environment

. . . and it all ends up in what we eat and drink

Secondary pathway

FIGURE 5.36 Framework of PPCPs. (From Florida Department of Environmental Protection,
Pharmaceuticals, personal care products and chemicals of concern: A brieing on an emerging issue, retrieved
November 9, 2008, from Florida Department of Environmental Protection, 2006, Available at http://www.dep.
state.l.us/waste/quick_topics/publications/shw/meds/PPCPBrieingForWeb112006.pdf. With permission.)

Another major problematic class of PPCPs is antibiotics, both from human and animal produc-
tion usage. A major concern is that once discharged into the aquatic environment, bacterial strains
will develop that are resistant to antibiotics (Hirsch et al. 1999). The Center for Disease Control
(CDC) estimates that 70% of all hospital-contracted infections are resistant to at least one antibiotic
(Chander et al. 2007). A major and controversial use of antibiotics in the environment is in the ani-
mal production industry (Phillips et al. 2004), and Denmark and the European Union have banned
the use of antibiotics for growth production (Smith et al. 2005). The discharge of antibiotics to and
from wastewater treatment facilities is also an issue since these facilities grow microorganisms to
degrade waste. Recent research has suggested that “that wastewater treatment process contributes
to the selective increase of antibiotic resistant bacteria and the occurrence of multi-drug resistant
bacteria in aquatic environments” (Zhang et al. 2009) as relected in a University of Michigan News
Service Headline (May 8, 2009) “Bacteria create aquatic superbugs in waste treatment plants.”
Other personal care products entering the environment, including cosmetics, fragrances, sun-
screens, antibacterial products, and other materials, are essentially unregulated and their impacts
are unknown. So, will PPCPs be our next generation's problem?

REFERENCES
ADEM. 2006. Final nutrient total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for the Cahaba river watershed. Alabama
Department of Environmental Management, Water Quality Branch, Water Division, Montgomery, AL.
Allan, J.D. and M.M. Castillo. 2007. Stream Ecology , 2nd ed. Springer, Dordrecht, Netherlands.