Review: <i>Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) as endocrine disrupting contaminants (EDCs) in South African surface waters</i>

Abstract

Globally, water resources are under constant threat of being polluted by a diverse range of man-made chemicals, and South Africa is no exception. These contaminants can have detrimental effects on both human and wildlife health. It is increasingly evident that several chemicals may modulate endocrine system pathways in vertebrate species, and these are collectively referred to as endocrine disrupting contaminants (EDCs). Although the endocrine-disrupting effect of water pollutants has been mainly linked to agricultural pesticides and industrial effluents, other pollutants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) are largely unnoticed, but also pose a potentially significant threat. Here we present for the first time in a South African context, a summarised list of PPCPs and other EDCs detected to date within South African water systems, as well as their possible endocrine-disrupting effect in-vitro and in-vivo. This review addresses other factors which should be investigated in future studies, including endocrine disruption, PPCP metabolites, environmental toxicology, and antibiotic resistance. The challenges of removing EDCs and other pollutants at South African wastewater treatment works (WWTWs) are also highlighted. The need for focused research involving both in-vitro and in-vivo studies to detect PPCPs in water systems, and to delineate adverse outcome pathways (AOPs) of priority PPCPs to aid in environmental impact assessment (EIA), are discussed.

Exclusion of Estrogenic and Androgenic Steroid Hormones from Municipal Membrane Bioreactor Wastewater Using UF/NF/RO Membranes for Water Reuse Application

“…The YES offers a viable option that indicates the net estrogenic potential of a water sample to modulate hormone receptor binding, with the estimated EEQs providing a semi-quantitative assessment of all compounds, which may mimic an estrogenic response similar to E 2 . It is, therefore, possible to compare such EEQ values to other toxicological studies [56].…”

Risk-management tool for environmental prioritization of pharmaceuticals based on emissions from hospitals

“…Consequently, pharmaceuticals that are not completely removed, are discharged with the WWTP effluent into receiving water bodies. Pharmaceutical residues have not only been found in surface waters all over the world (e.g., Archer et al, 2017;Richmond et al, 2018), but increasingly also in groundwater sources and in drinking water (e.g., aus der Beek et al, 2016;Khan and Nicell, 2015;Moermond, 2016). This calls for strategies to reduce and if possible, prevent pharmaceutical emissions to the aquatic environment.…”

Diagnóstico y remoción de contaminantes emergentes en aguas superficiales y cloacales

“…El impacto de los contaminantes emergentes es un área de la ciencia y la ingeniería ambiental en desarrollo y un campo de estudio de los últimos años en diferentes lugares del mundo (Archer et al, 2017b;Bu et al, 2013). En países como Colombia y Argentina, se necesita generar mayor volumen de información, para tener un mayor conocimiento acerca de su presencia y distribución en los cuerpos de agua.…”

“…La contaminación creciente de los sistemas de agua dulce está generando un deterioro importante de los recursos hídricos (Archer et al, 2017b). En las últimas décadas, a este proceso se está sumando la contaminación resultante de los contaminantes emergentes (CE), lo que ha generado numerosos estudios de investigación básica como tecnológica para disminuir su impacto en el ambiente (Arrubla et al, 2016).…”