Environmental risk assessment of antibiotics in the Swedish environment with emphasis on sewage treatment plants
Journal article, 2007

The potential risks associated with antibiotics present in the Swedish environment were assessed using concentrations found in hospital effluent, and sewage treatment waters and sludge, in combination with data on their environmental effects obtained from the literature. For the aqueous environment, measured environmental concentrations and effect/no observed effect concentration ratios were much lower than one in most cases. The only exceptions, where concentrations of the investigated substances were high enough to pose potential risks, were the concentrations of the two fluoroquinolones, ofloxacin and ciprofloxacin, in the hospital effluent. Treating digested dewatered sludge by heat did not fully eliminate norfloxacin or ciprofloxacin, thus pellets may still contain high amounts of these substances (sub to low mg kg(-1) dw). In leaching tests less than 1% of the amounts of these fluoroquinolones in the sludge or pellets reached the aqueous phase, indicating that their mobility is limited if sludge is used to fertilize soil. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

PHARMACEUTICALS

antibiotics

sewage treatment

MIXTURE

LEMNA-GIBBA

TOXICITY

VIBRIO-FISCHERI

ALGAL

environmental risk assessment

RESISTANCE

FLUOROQUINOLONE ANTIBACTERIAL AGENTS

SLUDGE

Sweden

SOIL

plants

SOLID-PHASE EXTRACTION

Author

R. H. Lindberg

Umeå University

Karin Björklund

Chalmers, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Water Environment Technology

P. Rendahl

Umeva

Magnus Johansson

AstraZeneca AB

M. Tysklind

Umeå University

B. A. V. Andersson

Umeå University

Water Research

0043-1354 (ISSN) 1879-2448 (eISSN)

Vol. 41 3 613-619

Subject Categories

Civil Engineering

DOI

10.1016/j.watres.2006.11.014

More information

Latest update

3/21/2018