[Pharmwaste] Fate Of Personal Care Products Linked To Environmental Pollution And Human Health Concerns

[DeBiasi,Deborah]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080516100942.htm


Fate Of Personal Care Products Linked To Environmental Pollution And
Human Health Concerns

ScienceDaily (May 19, 2008) - Parental concerns in maintaining germ-free
homes for their children have led to an ever-increasing demand and the
rapid adoption of anti-bacterial soaps and cleaning agents. But the
active ingredients of those antiseptic soaps now have come under
scrutiny by the EPA and FDA, due to both environmental and human health
concerns.

Two closely related antimicrobials, triclosan and triclocarban, are at
the center of the debacle. Whereas triclosan (TCS) has long captured the
attention of toxicologists due to its structural resemblance to dioxin
(the Times Beach and Love Canal poison), triclocarban (TCC) has
ski-rocketed in 2004 from an unknown and presumably harmless consumer
product additive to one of today's top ten pharmaceuticals and personal
care products most frequently found in the environment and in U.S.
drinking water resources.

Now, Biodesign Institute at Arizona State Univesity researcher Rolf
Halden and co-workers, in a feat of environmental detective work, have
traced back the active ingredients of soaps -- used as long ago as the
1960s -- to their current location, the shallow sediments of New York
City's Jamaica Bay and the Chesapeake Bay, the nation's largest estuary.

"Our group has shown that antimicrobial ingredients used a half a
century ago, by our parents and grandparents, are still present today at
parts-per-million concentrations in estuarine sediments underlying the
brackish waters into which New York City and Baltimore discharge their
treated domestic wastewater," said Halden, a new member of the
institute's Center for Environmental Biotechnology. "This extreme
environmental persistence by itself is a concern, and it is only
amplified by recent studies that show both triclosan and triclocarban to
function as endocrine disruptors in mammalian cell cultures and in
animal models."

Aiding in his team's research was another type of contamination: the
radioactive fallout from nuclear testing conducted in the second half of
the last century. Using the known deposition history and half-lives of
two radioactive isotopes, cesium-137 and beryllium-7, Halden and his
collaborators Steven Chillrud, Jerry Ritchie and Richard Bopp were able
to assign the approximate time at which sediments observed to contain
antimicrobial residues had been deposited in the two East Coast
locations.

By analyzing vertical cores of sediment deposited over time in the two
sampling locations on the East Coast, they showed that TCC, and to a
lesser extent, TCS, can persist in estuary sediments. TCC was shown to
be present at parts per million levels, which could represent unhealthy
levels for aquatic life, especially the bottom feeders that are
important to commercial fishing industries like shellfish and crabs.

In the Chesapeake Bay samples, the group noticed a significant drop in
TCC levels that corresponded to a technology upgrade in the nearby
wastewater treatment plant back in 1978. However, earlier work by the
team had shown that enhanced removal of TCC and TCS in wastewater
treatment plants leads to accumulation of the problematic antimicrobial
substances in municipal sludge that often is applied on agricultural
land for disposal. Lead author Todd Miller concludes that "little is
actually degraded during wastewater treatment and more information is
needed regarding the long term consequences these chemicals may have on
environmentally beneficial microorganisms."

Along the way of studying the deposition history of antimicrobials in
sediments, the team also discovered a new pathway for the breakdown of
antimicrobial additives of consumer products. Deep in the muddy
sediments of the Chesapeake Bay, they found evidence for the activity of
anaerobic microorganisms that assist in the decontamination of their
habitat by pulling chlorine atoms one by one off the carbon backbone of
triclocarban, presumably while obtaining energy for their metabolism in
the process. "This is good news," said Halden, "but unfortunately the
process does not occur in all locations and furthermore it is quite
slow. If we continue to use persistent antimicrobial compounds at the
current rate, we are outpacing nature's ability to decompose these
problematic compounds."

While combining bioenergy production and pollutant destruction has its
own appeal, Halden sees a simpler solution to combating the pollution
his team discovered: limit the use of antimicrobial personal care
products to situations where they improve public health and save lives.

"The irony is that these compounds have no measurable benefit over the
use of regular soap and water for hand washing; the contact time simply
is too short." Unfortunately this cannot be said for the bottom-dwelling
organisms in the sampling locations on the East Coast. "Here," Halden
concludes, "the affected organisms are experiencing multi-generational,
life-time exposures to our chemical follies."

Halden is planning to continue his research on persistent antimicrobials
by studying their body burden and associated health effects in
susceptible populations including mothers and their babies.

The work was funded in part by the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable
Future and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------

Journal reference:

T. R. Miller, J. Heidler, S. N. Chillrud, A. DeLaquil, J. C. Ritchie, J.
N. Mihalic, R. Bopp, and R. U. Halden. Science & Technology.
doi:10.1021/es702882g
[http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/abstract.cgi/esthag/asap/abs/es702882g.html
]
Adapted from materials provided by Arizona State University, via
EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Need to cite this story in your essay, paper, or report? Use one of the
following formats: 
 APA

 MLA Arizona State University (2008, May 19). Fate Of Personal Care
Products Linked To Environmental Pollution And Human Health Concerns.
ScienceDaily. Retrieved June 2, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com-
/releases/2008/05/080516100942.htm


Deborah L. DeBiasi
Email:   dldebiasi at deq.virginia.gov
WEB site address:  www.deq.virginia.gov
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
Office of Water Permit Programs
Industrial Pretreatment/Toxics Management Program
PPCPs, EDCs, and Microconstituents
Mail:          P.O. Box 1105, Richmond, VA  23218 (NEW!)
Location:  629 E. Main Street, Richmond, VA  23219
PH:         804-698-4028
FAX:      804-698-4032