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PREFACE TO: "PHARMACEUTICALS AND PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS IN THE ENVIRONMENT: SCIENTIFIC AND REGULATORY ISSUES"
Citation:
Daughton, C G. AND T JonesLepp. PREFACE TO: "PHARMACEUTICALS AND PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS IN THE ENVIRONMENT: SCIENTIFIC AND REGULATORY ISSUES". Symposium Series 791, Chemistry. American Chemical Society, Washington, DC, , 416, (2001).
Impact/Purpose:
The research focused on in the subtasks is the development and application of state-of the-art technologies to meet the needs of the public, Office of Water, and ORD in the area of Water Quality. Located In the subtasks are the various research projects being performed in support of this Task and more in-depth coverage of each project. Briefly, each project's objective is stated below.
Subtask 1: To integrate state-of-the-art technologies (polar organic chemical integrative samplers, advanced solid-phase extraction methodologies with liquid chromatography/electrospray/mass spectrometry) and apply them to studying the sources and fate of a select list of PPCPs. Application and improvement of analytical methodologies that can detect non-volatile, polar, water-soluble pharmaceuticals in source waters at levels that could be environmentally significant (at concentrations less than parts per billion, ppb). IAG with USGS ends in FY05. APM 20 due in FY05.
Subtask 2: Coordination of interagency research and public outreach activities for PPCPs. Participate on NSTC Health and Environment subcommittee working group on PPCPs. Web site maintenance and expansion, invited technical presentations, invited articles for peer-reviewed journals, interviews for media, responding to public inquiries.
Subtask 3: To apply state-of-the-art environmental forensic techniques to the recognition and characterization of emerging pollutants in the aquatic environment. There is a need for high sensitivity and for a powerful method of structural characterization, advanced mass spectrometric and chromatographic techniques to be employed to meet the challenge of emerging pollutants, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products, agents of sabotage, and explosives. Ongoing efforts continue to identify previously unrecognized pollutants from a range of problematic samples having importance to regional and state contacts.
Subtask 4: To provide the Agency with a set of practical analytical methods for the selective and sensitive determination of selenium species (organic, inorganic, volatile and non volatile forms) in multiple media to accurately assess and if necessary control the risk of selenium exposure to organisms. This includes development of optimal extraction, digestion, separation and detection approaches.
Subtask 5: To develop and apply an analytical method that can extract and detect synthetic musks. The extent of exposure may be determined by measuring levels of synthetic musks from their potential source (communal sewage effluent). This subtask ends in FY05 with the deliverable of APM 21. Future applications to biosolids will be covered in subtask 6.
Subtask 6: Application, and improvement, of previously in-house developed sensitive, robust, and green, methodologies regarding the use of urobilin and sterols as a possible markers of sewage contamination.
Subtask 7: Adaptation and improvement of previously developed in-house methods, for PPCPs (e.g., antibiotics and musks) to solid materials (e.g. biosolids, sediments).
Subtask 8: Study of the presence of personal care products, incombustible organic compounds from the direct-piping of small engines exhaust in Lake Tahoe, and lake deposition of airborne pollutants from industrial activity
Description:
Often overlooked in our daily lives are the inescapable, intimate, and immediate connections between our personal activities and the environment in which we live. This is especially true with regard to the use and disposal of consumer chemicals. A significant aspect of our global society that illustrates the potential impact of our lives on the environment is the widespread and escalating use of pharmaceuticals and personal care products - simply referred to as PPCPS. Many of these chemicals are specifically designed to elicit potent pharmacological or toxicological effects. In distinct contrast to nearly all agro/industrial chemicals, which are often used on large, relatively confined scales, the end use for PPCPs is highly dispersed and centered around the activities and actions of the individual. PPCPs enjoy worldwide usage and attendant discharge or inadvertent release to the environment. Their introduction to the environment has no geographic boundaries or climatic-use limitations as do many other synthetic chemicals - they are discharged to the environment wherever people live or visit, regardless of the time of year.
It is difficult for the individual to perceive their small-scale activities as having any measurable impact on the larger environment - personal actions are often deemed minuscule or inconsequential in the larger scheme. Yet it is the combined actions and activities of individuals that indeed can significantly impact the environment in a myriad of ways. The personal, individual ingestion/application ofchemicals from this very large, diverse group of biologically active substances (and their metabolic/transformation products) leads to their direct and indirect worldwide discharge to the environment through sewage treatment systems (indirectly from exereta and directly via disposal or washing) and from other sources such as terrestrial runoff/leaching from excreta of medicated domestic animals (including pets) and landfills.