The potential ecotoxicological impact of pharmaceutical and personal care products on humans and freshwater, based on USEtox™ characterization factors. A Spanish case study of toxicity impact scores

•Characterization factors (CFs) of 27 PPCPs widely used worldwide were estimated.•CF can be used to generate impact score rankings.•Emission to continental freshwater compartment showed the highest CFs values for human and ecotoxicological effects.•Freshwater aquatic ecotoxicological CFs are much higher than human toxicity CFs•The values of CFs can be incorporated in Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) studies.

Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) are being increasingly included in Life Cycle Assessment studies (LCAs) since they have brought into evidence both human and ecological adverse effects due to their presence in different environmental compartments, wastewater facilities and industry. Therefore, the main goal of this research was to estimate the characterization factors (CFs) of 27 PPCPs widely used worldwide in order to incorporate their values into Life Cycle Impact Assessment studies (LCIA) or to generate a toxicity impact score ranking. Physicochemical properties, degradation rates, bioaccumulation, ecotoxicity and human health effects were collected from experimental data, recognized databases or estimated using EPI Suite™ and the USEtox™ software, and were subsequently used for estimating CFs. In addition, a Spanish toxicity impact score ranking was carried out for 49 PPCPs using the 27 newly calculated CFs, and 22 CFs already available in the literature, besides the data related to the occurrence of PPCPs in the environment in Spain. It has been highlighted that emissions into the continental freshwater compartment showed the highest CFs values for human effects (ranging from 10− 9 to 10− 3 Cases·kg− 1), followed by emissions into the air (10− 9 to 10− 5 Cases·kg− 1), soil (10− 11 to 105 Cases·kg− 1) and seawater (10− 12 to 10− 4 Cases·kg− 1). CFs regarding the affectation of freshwater aquatic environments were the highest of those proceeding from emissions into continental freshwater (between 1 to 104 PAF·m3·day·kgemission− 1) due to the direct contact between the source of emission and the compartment affected, followed by soil (among 10− 1 to 104 PAF·m3·day·kgemission− 1), and air (among 10− 2 to 104 PAF·m3·day·kgemission− 1) while the lowest were the CFs of continental seawater (among 10− 28 to 10− 3 PAF·m3·day·kgemission− 1). Freshwater aquatic ecotoxicological CFs are much higher than human toxicity CFs, demonstrating that the ecological impact of PPCPs in aquatic environments must be a matter of urgent attention. According to the Spanish toxicity impact score calculated, the PPCPs with the highest impact are hormones, antidepressants, fragrances, antibiotics, angiotensin receptor blockers and blood lipid regulators, which have already been found in other kinds of score rankings. These results, which were not available until now, will be useful in order to perform better LCIA studies, incorporating the micro-pollutants whose CFs have been estimated, or in order to carry out single hazard/risk environmental impact assessments.

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