Evaluation of Glyphosate Ecotoxicity and Biodegradability in the Municipal Wastewaters

Glyphosate (G) is a broad-spectrum systemic organophosphate herbicide being widely used to control weeds in agricultural fields and urban areas. Its safety for both human health and aquatic biomes is a subject of wide debate. This study was aimed at evaluating the removal efficiency and ecotoxicity of G based herbicide (GBH) Klinik® (Nufarm, Austria) added to the raw municipal wastewater (WW) in a lab-scale model column system. The effect of oxide ceramics as a filtering medium (treatment „B”), as well as activated sludge and nutrients (treatment „C”) was compared with the control columns, which contained only WW (treatment „A”). After 72h treatment of WW spiked with 100 mg/L G, the lowest …