4.20 - Occurrence Fate and Effects of Contaminants in Domestic, Agricultural, Landfill, and Industrial Waste

Description

Management systems for domestic waste (i.e., on-site, and municipal wastewater, and municipal landfills), agricultural waste and runoff, and industrial waste such as produced water from hydraulic fracturing operations, legacy and current landfill operations and more represent major potential sources and vectors of chemicals to the environment. These wastes are complex mixtures of nutrients, salts, metals, microbes, and various organic chemicals including certain contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) (e.g., pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs, personal care products, per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), flame retardants, plasticizers, solvents), naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM), oil derivatives, glycol polymers, ethoxylated alcohols, quaternary ammonium compounds and likely many others still yet unreported. The chemicals themselves may perturb human and ecological health but also offer the ability to serve as tracers for tracking waste co-contaminants. In addition, studying the partitioning of substances between the liquid and solid waste streams as well as transformation can provide insight into environmentally relevant physicochemical properties and fate. Waste and waste-impacted environments are challenging to study, confounded by the enormous number and diversity of chemicals, complex sample matrices, and influence of transport and fate mechanisms. This session will aim to highlight advancements in the techniques and approaches being used to improve our understanding of chemicals (particularly CECs) in domestic, agricultural, and industrial waste. Research topics covered in this session include the occurrence and fate of these chemicals, their use as tracers to probe fate, transport, and physicochemical properties, characterize effects on biota exposed to waste in the receiving environments, and emerging treatment methodologies. We invite research covering the broad range of sources and pathways including municipal wastewater treatment systems, landfills, agricultural sources and runoff, and industrial sources such as produced water, as well as less conspicuous releases including on-site septic systems, wastewater lagoons, leaking sewers, historic landfills, and the land application of sludge and biosolids.