Consumer product antimicrobials select for antibiotic resistance in anaerobic digesters

Antibiotic resistance is responsible for thousands of deaths every year in the United States alone. It is important to keep antibiotics viable to prevent disease, but as antibiotic use increases so does antibiotic resistance. It is also possible that household antimicrobials can lead to selection of antibiotic resistance. In this work, an antimicrobial, triclocarban, was added to lab-scale anaerobic digesters. It was discovered that concentrations that have been observed in digesters can cause an increase in a multi-drug resistance gene. Future work should investigate the fate of this gene following land application of biosolids.