Personal care products use during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: Environmental and public health impact assessment using wastewater-based epidemiology

Problem: The recent SARS-CoV-2 pandemic had profound consequences on people’s wellbeing, societies and economy worldwide.  

The study: Public exposure to chemicals concern in personal care products (parabens and benzophenones) during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic was monitored for two years in four catchments (two cities and two towns) in our CWBE Living Labs accounting for >1 million people.  

Conclusions: Major changes in usage of parabens (p values < 0.05) were observed during national lockdowns (NLs). This is likely due to increased awareness towards personal hygiene during the pandemic, especially during the high COVID prevalence periods. In contrast, benzophenones showed seasonal trends; there were higher correlations with sunshine prevalence and temperature rather than NLs reflecting their usage in sunscreen products. Estimation of per capita intake of parabens and benzophenones using WBE revealed lower intake than the Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) established by the EFSA; however, the metabolism factor used was considered putative due to the lack of pharmacokinetic studies. Prediction of environmental exposure revealed peaks of higher impact during NLs and first year of pandemic, nevertheless the overall predicted values were below Predicted No Effect Concentrations (PNEC). 

Paper (s): Personal care products use during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: Environmental and public health impact assessment using wastewater-based epidemiology 

Partners: Wessex Water 

Funders: EPSRC Impact Acceleration Account (EP/R51164X/1, ENTRUST IAA), Wessex Water Innovative Pathways Control Project and GCRF EWS-C19 project (EP/V028499/1).