Effluents treatment plant effluent, endocrine

One of the groups of suspect chemicals in the most active effluents in the survey was the alkyl phenols. However, there are probably several endocrine disrupting chemicals in the effluents and rivers, as different waste treatment plants may feed into the same river. As well as the alkyl phenols, a large number and variety of chemicals have been found to cause this effea, including organochlorine insecticides such as DDT, organotin compounds, phthalate esters, plant products, dioxins, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, PCBs, and as expected natural and synthetic oestrogens. 

John R Giesy, Shane Snyder and coworkers from the Institute of Environmental Toxicology at Michigan State University studied effluents from several different types of municipal waste water treatment plants in central Michigan. They also came to the conclusion that human hormones (17 -estra-diol) and synthetic hormones (ethinylestradiol), not industrial chemicals with estrogenic activity, in the efQuents caused male fish to produce vitellogenin, a well-accepted indicator of endocrine disruption [145d]. 

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