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Gender-Bending Wastewater Effluent

Birth control pills and detergents may prove useful in our everyday lives, but once we flush them from our homes they can end up doing unforeseen damage to fish – raising questions about just what else they might be doing to people and the environment.

Studies show fish swimming downstream of sewage effluent have been changing sex as a result of very low levels of chemicals in the treated wastewater. The chemicals have been traced to birth control pills, detergents and natural female hormones. But what concerns scientists is that such miniscule concentrations of these chemicals (about one part per trillion, or the equivalent of a pinch of salt in a swimming pool) are able to wreak so much damage.

Exposure to these hormones, known as endocrine-disrupting chemicals, is changing male fish into females and also shrinking fish ovaries and reducing male sperm counts, recent research shows. The effects can occur from exposures as short as just one week.

The study raises unanswered questions about what unintended exposure to these chemicals may do to humans, especially children and developing fetuses, who are far more susceptible to low-level exposures than adults because of their body weight and still-developing systems.

To reduce the amount of chemicals being flushed into our water systems, use non-toxic cleansers and detergents with natural ingredients (there are now many on the market labeled “free and clear” of perfumes and dyes) and do not flush unused birth control pills down the toilet. That won’t stop all hormones from entering the water, because they will still do so through human waste, but it can help cut back on how much enters our environment.

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For more information on research into endocrine-disrupting chemicals, please click here.

To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to: www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org, or www.healthandenvironment.org