FATE OF EDCS IN WASTEWATER TREATMENT AND EU PERSPECTIVE ON EDC REGULATION

Municipal wastewater is one of the main exposure routes that brings the most important EDCs like natural and artificial hormones via urine, ingredients of personal care products and detergent via grey water (e.g. alkylphenol) and ubiquitous industrial chemicals (e.g. Bisphenyl A) into the environment.Whether trace pollutants can be eliminated in a WWTP depends on the biological treatment standard (Ternes et al., 2004). In Europe, mainly activated sludge systems are installed for biological treatment. Biological treatment has been developed step by step during the past 50 years starting from only BOD removal with short sludge retention times (SRT 10 days (Andersen et al., 2003). Biofiltration reaches similar removal efficiencies if designed for nutrient removal (Joss et al. 2004). With membrane bioreactors having SRT of more than 30 days an increased alkylphenol degradation (>95%) was observed (Wettstein, 2004). Sorption plays only a minor role if a compound is degraded.In the raw wastewater the hormones are mainly responsible for the estrogenic effect. In the outlet of nutrient removal plants the contribution of other EDCs like alkylphenols, bisphenols, phthalates and today unknown compounds become important because hormones are degraded by more than 95%. Even more so, since the strong focus on fish as the currently dominating sentinel group for aquatic ecotoxicity testing and monitoring bears the risk of underestimating the potential impact from non-steroidal estrogenic compounds for other aquatic wildlife groups, particularly invertebrates (Oehlmann et al., 2005).For sensitive receiving waters with low wastewater dilution or direct infiltration, partial ozonation (2-10 gO3 m-3, depending on the background DOC) can be an economic (