The role of bioassays in the evaluation of ecotoxicological aspects within the PEF/OEF protocols: The case of WWTPs

To spread or not to spread? Assessing the suitability of sewage sludge and other biogenic wastes for agriculture reuse

“…Indeed, several studies suggest that the limitations of the chemical “single substances” approach can be overcome by carrying out multi-tiered biological assays, which can directly and more accurately measure the impact of a stream [ [16] , [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] , [23] , [24] ]. More recently, the adoption of bioassays within the protocol for the evaluation of the environmental footprint of wastewater treatment plants was proposed [ [24] , [25] , [26] , [27] ]. Only bioassays, in fact, may be able to measure the actual effect of a matrix on the different components of the ecosystem, thus giving a more realistic answer to the question: is sludge (or another residue) reuse safe?…”

Environmental Footprint of Wastewater Treatment: A Step Forward in the Use of Toxicological Tools

“…The results of an integrated monitoring, based on chemical analyses and toxicological tests, could be successfully integrated in the environmental footprint evaluation based on a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) approach, which represents a useful tool for evaluating and benchmarking the actual impact of products and organizations [ 8 , 9 ].…”

Air, water and soil: Which alternatives? Alternative models in environmental toxicology

“…The results of bioassays were then converted into biological equivalents of target reference substances and used in the PEF/OEF protocol. The adoption of biological equivalents showed a higher sensitivity with respect to the input of chemical parameters, also suggesting a great valence diversity among different bioassays (Pedrazzani et al, 2018).…”

“…Moreover, any additional treatment causes an increase of chemicals and/or energy consumption, which means new emissions to the environment. A multidisciplinary research group at the University of Brescia is working on methods for the biological characterisation of wastewater so as to measure the combined effect of hundreds of pollutants (by-products included) (Pedrazzani et al, 2018). Models for comparing the environmental impact on the hydrosphere and the atmosphere are also under development.…”