Whole effluent and single substances approach: a tool for hazardous wastewater management

Evaluation of toxicity and biodegradability or persistencey of different chemical substances and wastewaters is essential for their hazardous impact and risk assessment. Many various types of toxicity and biodegradation assessment tests are nowadays available for evaluation of the effects of pure substances and with proper combination of the tests, the prediction of the effect on the aquatic recipient is possible. On the other hand, there is a lack of agreed test procedures for estimating biodegradability of complex wastewaters. A methodology for wastewater characterisation employing single substance and whole effluent approach using stabilisation study is presented. The aim of the study was to establish the relationship between toxicity and biodegradability of phenol-formaldehyde industrial wastewater and its main constituents to evaluate presented methodology for hazardous wastewater management.