Saturday, October 27, 2012

Researchers Emphasize the Need to Monitor Rivers for Triclosan

As an antibacterial and antifungal agent, Triclosan is used in everything from toothpaste, to soaps, socks and trash bags. While the US Food and Drug Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the European Union all regulate triclosan, the chemical is not monitored and often gets absorbed into sewage sludge after wastewater treatment.Researchers from Germany and Slovakia are claiming that triclosan is harmful to the ecology of rivers and are calling for further monitoring of the chemical. After monitoring the Elbe river basin, concentrations of the chemical at various test sites were found to exceed the predicted no-effect concentration for algal communities. From the 500 river basin-specific pollutants investigated, triclosan ranked sixth as one of the most particularly harmful substances in Europe. According to an article published in the journal Environmental Science Pollution Research, scientists want to emphasize the importance for routine monitoring programs at the European scale.
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