Hospital effluents environmental risk assessment

Keywords Environmental risk assessment. Hospital effluents. Management and treatment, Pharmaceuticals... 

One study that has tackled this issue, however, was recently published by de Souza et al. [104], who set up an environmental risk assessment of the 21 intravenous antibiotics most used in an intensive care unit of a hospital in Curitiba (Brazil). They evaluated the RQ, based on PEC, both in the raw effluent and after a dedicated conventional biological treatment. They found that, in the raw effluent from the ward, the environmental risk was high for 15 compounds, medium for 4 and low for 2 similarly, the treated effluent was labelled as high risk in terms of 14 compounds, medium for 5 and low for 2. 

In conclusion, the authors of the cited studies all agree that further research into environmental risk assessment of hospital effluents, incorporating different types of substances used in care and diagnostic activities, as well as cleaning operations (pharmaceuticals, detergents, disinfectants, heavy metals, macropollutants), is vital. Moreover, further studies need to be focussed on evaluating the risk posed by pollutant mixtures, and work is needed to validate the predictive models proposed thus far [19, 49], to evaluate chronic toxicity due to PhCs and then-mixtures and to provide experimental data pertaining to specific case studies. 

Small hospital in a small urban catchment area a local mass balance analysis of micro- and macropoUutant loads can provide useful information about the contribution of the different users. Environmental risk assessment of the expected final effluent and analysis of the characteristics of the local receiving water body will guide selection of the advanced treatment sequence (MBR, ozone, UV). 

Verlicchi P, A1 Aukidy M, Galletti A, Petrovic M, Barcelo D (2011) Hospital effluent investigation of the concentrations and distribution of pharmaceuticals and environmental risk assessment (in press)... 

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