In the late 1940s, foaming in streams and at wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) were first reported, and by the early 1950s scientific evidence identified the cause as synthetic surfactants, especially alkyl benzene sulfonates (ABS), the most widely used surfactant, because it was not readily biodegradable ( Sallee et al., 1956).
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This rapid expansion of synthetic detergents led to environmental challenges as the wastewater was discharged into surface waters.
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By 1953, in North America, the number of pounds of detergent products containing synthetic surfactant sold exceeded that of soaps. Detergents that contained these surfactants increased in popularity because these provided better cleaning and more suds than traditional soaps and at lower prices. Since the late 1930s and early 1940s when the first synthetic surfactants were developed, surfactants have been increasingly used as the active ingredient in a wide variety of consumer products such as personal care products (e.g., shampoos, body wash) and in household cleaning products (e.g., dishwashing detergents, laundry detergents, hard-surface cleaners). This paper also highlights the many years of research that the surfactant and cleaning products industry has supported, as part of their environmental sustainability commitment, to improve environmental tools, approaches, and develop innovative methods appropriate to address environmental properties of personal care and cleaning product chemicals, many of which have become approved international standard methods. The retrospective risk assessments of these same substances have clearly demonstrated that the conclusions of the prospective risk assessments are valid and confirm that these substances do not pose a risk to the aquatic or sediment environments. Prospective risk assessments of AS, AES, AE, LAS, and LCOH demonstrate that these substances, although used in very high volume and widely released to the aquatic environment, have no adverse impact on the aquatic or sediment environments at current levels of use. These data are used to illustrate the process for conducting both prospective and retrospective risk assessments for large-volume chemicals and categories of chemicals with wide dispersive use. To date, this is the most comprehensive report on these substance's chemical structures, use, and volume information, physical/chemical properties, environmental fate properties such as biodegradation and sorption, monitoring studies through sewers, wastewater treatment plants and eventual release to the environment, aquatic and sediment toxicity, and bioaccumulation information. These chemicals are used in a wide range of personal care and cleaning products. The surfactants and feedstocks covered include alcohol sulfate or alcohol sulfate (AS), alcohol ethoxysulfate (AES), linear alkylbenzene sulfonate (LAS), alcohol ethoxylate (AE), and long-chain alcohol (LCOH).
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This paper brings together over 250 published and unpublished studies on the environmental properties, fate, and toxicity of the four major, high-volume surfactant classes and relevant feedstocks.