Hundreds of commonly used soaps, lotions, and cleaning products will soon have to undergo makeovers.
On Jan. 1, 2017, Minnesota became the first state to officially ban triclosan, an antibacterial agent found in more than 140 types of personal care and home products.
The entire United States will soon follow suit. In Sept. 2016, the FDA issued a final rule banning triclosan, giving manufacturers until Sept. 2017 to comply with the rulemaking by removing or reformulating products.
Triclosan has been linked to problems with sex and thyroid hormones and other bodily functions, as well as the development of resistant bacteria.
From an environmental standpoint, triclosan has been a problem for decades. Up to 96% of triclosan is washed down the drain during normal use, leading to significant concentrations in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent, which is released back into lakes and rivers.
William Arnold, PhD, professor in the University of Minnesota’s Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering, has been studying the environmental impact of triclosan for over 15 years. His team’s research led to the ban in Minnesota.
Arnold and his team first began investigating triclosan to determine how its presence in WWTP effluent has impacted the lakes and rivers in Minnesota.
“We wanted to understand how it reacted under sunlight after it was released from wastewater treatment plants,” said Arnold, in an exclusive interview with R&D Magazine. “What we found was that a couple of its photolysis products were potentially of environmental concern as well.”
Previous research had already shown that exposure to chlorine, commonly used in WWTPs, altered triclosan.
By testing lakes and rivers, Arnold and his colleagues found an increasing amount of other chemical compounds, called chlorinated triclosan derivatives, that form when triclosan is exposed to chlorine during the wastewater disinfection process. When exposed to sunlight, triclosan and its chlorinated derivatives form dioxins that persist in the environment.
“So now instead of just having this triclosan you have triclosan and three chlorinated triclosan derivatives. All four of those compounds then react under sunlight to form four specific dioxins,” said Arnold.
Dioxins are a highly toxic and persistent class of chemicals in the environment that accumulate exponentially and can be transported long distances.
By looking at lake sediment cores, Arnold and his team determined that triclosan and these dioxins can stay in the environment for years. They found traces of the 3 chlorinated triclosan derivatives and the four dioxins going back to 1964 when it was first patented, with virtually no traces appearing before triclosan got to the market.
In March 2013, Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton ordered all state agencies to stop buying products that contain the chemical compound triclosan. Arnold testified in a legislative hearing in 2013 when a statewide ban was first proposed.
It is important that consumers are aware of the chemicals in the products they buy, said Arnold
“There are all kinds of chemicals that are used every day and this is a nice case study for thinking about the products that we are using and where they go eventually,” he said. “We need to remember that what we put down the drain might persist a lot longer than we think. We also need to think about why we are using these chemicals. Read labels.”
