Sponsor:
German Environmental Agency, Dessau (F + E 102 06 519)
Realisation:
Hydrotox GmbH, Ismene Jäger (project management), Gabriele Meyer
Project duration:
1993 – 1995
Summary
Waste water from textile refining companies and their corresponding purification plants was examined with the aid of biotest methods. Altogether, about 560 fish, daphnia, luminescent bacteria, algae, Ames, hamster cell and Zahn-Wellens tests were performed. The foundation for this was the Rahmenabwasser-Verwaltungsvorschrift based on § 7a WHG (waste water regulation) into whose appendix several test methods have been incorporated. The toxicity of textile waste waters as compared to other industrial waste waters was only extraordinary in isolated cases. However, a large number of samples (27 %) from the major industrial plants which discharge into municipal waste water treatments plants are mutagenic in the Ames test in their native state. Consecutive tests for chromosomal aberrations (V79 hamster cell test) additionally displayed a mutagenic potential for five out of nine native samples. The usefulness of these test systems as substitutes for the fish test, as well as their applicability for recognizing the source of an unwanted effect in the waste water by tracing it back to the substreams and chemicals in the production stage, are discussed. The mutagenic effects are also linked with the examination of older substances and the Chemikaliengesetz.
Further information
The final report has been published in German in the UBA-Texte series No. 49/95 in July 1995, but is out of print.
Contact Person
Dipl.-Chem. Ismene Jäger (
Jaeger(at)hydrotox.de, Tel: #49-(0)761-45512-20)