Pharmaceuticals are biologically active and persistent substances which have been recognized as a continuing threat to environmental stability. Chronic ecotoxicity data as well as information on the current distribution levels in different environmental compartments continue to be sparse and are focused on those therapeutic classes that are more frequently prescribed and consumed. Nevertheless,...

The European Construction Products Regulation allows Member States to adopt rules for evaluating the environmental impact of their buildings. The aim of the project was to develop recommendations for a test battery for the ecotoxicological assessment of the environmental impact of construction products for outdoor use and contribute to the European harmonization of test methods. From a shortlis...

Use of chemical criteria in assessing the potential for adverse toxic effects in contaminated sites can under or overestimate the necessary level of site cleanup required. The use of ecotoxicity testing provides a more direct assessment of adverse environmental impact. A multi-trophic level soil ecotoxicity assessment was done on soil contaminated with crude oil distilled into five different fr...

To assess the potential impacts of agricultural pesticides on tropical freshwater ecosystems, the present study developed temperature-specific, freshwater species protection concentrations (i.e., ecotoxicity threshold values) for 8 pesticides commonly detected in Australia's tropical freshwaters. Because relevant toxicity data for native tropical freshwater species to assess the ecological risk...

The main objective of this study was to assess the environmental risk of chars derived from the pyrolysis of mixtures of pine, plastics, and scrap tires, by studying their leaching potential and ecotoxicity. Relationships between chemical composition and ecotoxicity were established to identify contaminants responsible for toxicity. Since metallic contaminants were the focus of the present stud...

Antibiotics, as special pollutants in piggery wastewater, have negative effects on wastewater treatment processes. However, it is difficult to obtain a clear understanding of the toxic potency of antibiotics using the common inhibitory experiments of wastewater because of their low concentrations. Therefore, this study for the first time reports research on examining the toxic strength of pigge...

The design of efficient liposomal systems for drug delivery is of considerable biomedical interest. In this context, vesicles prepared from cationic/anionic surfactants may offer several advantages, mainly due to their spontaneity in formation and long-term stability. There is also an impending need to produce less toxic, more biocompatible amphiphiles, while maintaining the desirable aggregati...

A wide range of Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) are present in the environment, and many of their adverse effects are unknown. The environmental risk assessment (ERA) of twenty six PPCPs of high consumption and occurrence in Spain was done in this work. Based on ecotoxicity values obtained by bioluminescence and respirometry assays, the compounds were classified as establishe...

In this study, the concentration probability distributions of 82 pharmaceutical compounds detected in the effluents of 179 European wastewater treatment plants were computed and inserted into a multimedia fate model. The comparative ecotoxicological impact of the direct emission of these compounds from wastewater treatment plants on freshwater ecosystems, based on a potentially affected fractio...

Hazard classification of waste is a necessity, but the hazard properties (named "H" and soon "HP") are still not all defined in a practical and operational manner at EU level. Following discussion of subsequent draft proposals from the Commission there is still no final decision. Methods to implement the proposals have recently been proposed: tests methods for physical risks, test batteries for...