Use of prospective and retrospective risk assessment methods for chemical mixtures in wastewater discharges

New publication: Use of prospective and retrospective risk assessment methods for chemical mixtures in wastewater discharges

The SETAC Pellston Workshop® Simplifying environmental mixtures – an aquatic exposure-based approach via exposure scenarios (March 2015, Valencia, Spain) addressed the need to improve mixture assessments by considering different exposure scenarios related to land use. Recently, a series of papers from this workshop was published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, including the work Use of prospective and retrospective risk assessment methods that simplify chemical mixtures associated with treated domestic wastewater discharges, to which Anja Coors contributed.

This work presents a framework for conducting a mixture assessment for down-the-drain chemicals in wastewater treatment plant effluents using an effluent scenario with a representative but simplified mixture composition. The frameworks starts with a generic prospective assessment using conservative assumptions to identify potential ecological risks, followed by a higher resolution prospective assessment if necessary, and then by a targeted retrospective assessment if warranted. The prospective assessment is informed by the type of wastewater treatment used, the population size served by the wastewater treatment plant, and the available effluent dilution in the receiving water. The framework is intended to facilitate the process by which ecological risks from down-the-drain chemical mixtures in domestic wastewater treatment plant effluents can be (a) prioritised in terms of whether single chemicals or the mixture as a whole represent a potential risk, and (b) verified using retrospective ecologically based assessments.

For additional information, see the open access publication in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry:

Diamond, J., Altenburger, R., Coors, A., Dyer, S.D., Focazio, M., Kidd, K., Koelmans, A.A., Leung, K.M.Y., Servos, M.R., Snape, J., Tolls J., Zhang, X. (2018). Use of prospective and retrospective risk assessment methods that simplify chemical mixtures associated with treated domestic wastewater discharges. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 37, 690-702.

For further new publications, see ECT’s publication list.