Discharge of pharmaceutical products (PPs) through a conventional biological sewage treatment plant: MECs vs PECs?

Pharmaceuticals for human use are consumed in significant quantities and their occurrence in aquatic systems has been reported by a number of authors. In the context of environmental risk assessment, there is an increasing interest in evaluating the discharge of pharmaceutical products to surface waters through sewage treatment plants (STP). This case study was carried out on a conventional biological treatment plant (Alès, France) and focused on a set of eleven drugs representing the main therapeutic classes. Measured environmental concentrations (MECs) range from the low ng L(-1) to 1.5 microg L(-1) in effluent and up to few hundred ng L(-1) in receiving surface waters. There is a good agreement between MEC and predicted environmental concentration (PEC) values for seven of the eleven investigated drugs in STP effluent. There is not such a good match between PEC and MEC values in surface waters, and this highlights the limits of this approach, at the local scale.