Pharmaceuticals in wastewater treatment plants of tuscany: Occurrence and toxicity

A monitoring on the occurrence of nine different pharmaceutical active compounds at the inlet and outlet of three wastewater treatment plants in Tuscany has been made. Moreover, the overall toxicity of the wastewater was evaluated using two different bioassays. Results show that few compounds were completely removed during the treatment processes (doxycycline and paracetamol), some others were only partially removed (such as ketoprofen, atenolol and amoxicillin) while most of them were not reduced after the treatment, as in the case of diclofenac, carbamazepine, clarithromycin and β-estradiol.