Environment International 9293 (2016) 183188

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Environment International
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envint

Review article

Removal of trace organic contaminants from domestic wastewater: A

meta-analysis comparison of sewage treatment technologies
Steven D. Melvin , Frederic D.L. Leusch
Smart Water Research Centre, Australian Rivers Institute, Grifth School of Environment, Grifth University, Southport, QLD, 4222, Australia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 9 February 2016
Received in revised form 24 March 2016
Accepted 24 March 2016
Available online 20 April 2016
Keywords:
Sewage
Removal efciency
Organic contaminant
Endocrine disrupting compound
Pharmaceutical and personal care product
Meta-analysis

a b s t r a c t
Trace organic contaminants (TrOCs), such as endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) and pharmaceuticals and
personal care products (PPCPs), represent global threats to aquatic animals and ecosystems. A major source of
TrOCs in the aquatic environment is via the discharge of treated sewage, so there is an urgent need to evaluate
the comparative efciencies of the most widely used sewage treatment technologies as regards elimination of
these compounds from wastewater. To address this need, 976 published articles were compiled focusing on estimates of removal (%) for 20 common environmental TrOCs, from ve major sewage treatment technologies:
conventional activated sludge (CAS), oxidation ditch (OD), membrane bioreactor (MBR), ponds and constructed
wetlands (PCW), and trickling biological lters (TBF). A quantitative meta-analysis was performed to compare
standardized relative removal efciencies (SREs) of the compounds amongst these technologies, and where possible potential sources of heterogeneity were considered (e.g., ow rates and chemical sorption potential). The
results indicate that the most widely used CAS treatment and the less common TBF provide comparatively
poor overall removal of common organic micropollutants. Membrane bioreactors appear to be capable of achieving the greatest overall removal efciencies, but the sustainability and economic viability of this option has been
questioned. Treatment with OD systems may be more economical while still achieving comparatively high removal efciencies, and the analysis revealed OD to be the best option for targeting highly potent estrogenic
EDCs. This study offers a unique global assessment of TrOC removal via leading sewage treatment technologies,
and is an important step in the identication of effective options for treating municipal sewage.
2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents
1.
2.
3.

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Results and discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
3.1.
Overview of data collection . . . . . . . . . . .
3.2.
Comparing SREs and controlling for heterogeneity.
4.
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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1. Introduction
Trace Organic Contaminants (TrOCs), such as endocrine disrupting
compounds (EDCs) and pharmaceutical and personal care products
(PPCPs), are now widely considered as emerging threats to aquatic
Corresponding author at: Smart Water Research Centre, Building G51, Grifth
University, QLD 4222, Australia.
E-mail address: s.melvin@grifth.edu.au (S.D. Melvin).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2016.03.031
0160-4120/ 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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183
184
185
185
185
187
188
188

animals and ecosystem health (Boxall et al., 2012; Brausch and Rand,
2011; Kaplan, 2013; Pal et al., 2010; Stuart et al., 2012). Many representative TrOCs have been shown to elicit a range of adverse toxicological
effects in aquatic wildlife, often at environmentally relevant sub-lethal
concentrations (Godoy et al., 2015; Pereira et al., 2015). The discharge
of treated sewage is a primary source of such contaminants in the
aquatic environment (Jasinska et al., 2015; Kaplan, 2013; la Farr
et al., 2008). Ensuring the protection of aquatic ecosystems and the
preservation of global biodiversity therefore demands sewage

184

S.D. Melvin, F.D.L. Leusch / Environment International 9293 (2016) 183188

treatment technologies that not only target traditional parameters, such

as nutrients and pathogens, but which also eliminate broad classes of
organic micropollutants (Malaj et al., 2014). In light of the known
risks to water quality and ecosystem health, there is currently signicant international interest in the identication of treatment technologies that are capable of effectively removing TrOCs from sewage
(Gerbersdorf et al., 2015; Jones et al., 2007).
Numerous approaches exist for treating domestic sewage, ranging
from simple systems that rely on natural ecological processes, to operationally intensive engineered treatment technologies. While all systems
tend to achieve at least some degree of chemical removal, conventional
wastewater treatment technologies were never designed to remove
these categories of organic contaminants (Bolong et al., 2009; Ratola
et al., 2012; Rojas et al., 2013). Advanced treatment technologies such
as membrane bioreactors are currently of particular interest, due to
thorough removal of chemicals from wastewater (Petrovi et al.,
2003). However, the economic sustainability and the overall environmental benet of advanced treatment have been called into question,
since these systems consume high amounts of energy which often results in CO2 production (Jones et al., 2007). Attempts to experimentally
compare chemical removal efcacy amongst leading treatment technologies have been lacking, as logistical constraints have precluded any
sort of robust large-scale comparative analysis. The main limitation is
that it is simply not feasible to acquire statistically rigorous data from
a wide range of full-scale plants employing different treatment options.
As a result, comparative studies have generally been restricted to smallscale, geographically isolated cases, making it extremely difcult to extrapolate results on a broad (global) scale with any sort of condence.
Qualitative reviews have provided some insight regarding the removal of micropollutants using different wastewater treatment options
(Liu et al., 2009; Luo et al., 2014; Onesios et al., 2008). The foremost conclusion taken from such reviews is that chemical removal is extremely
variable, and particularly amongst the different classes of organic contaminants (Gerbersdorf et al., 2015). This variability makes it extremely
difcult, and generally inappropriate, to compare raw removal data
(Bond et al., 2003). However, quantitative assessment is necessary to
truly evaluate and compare the efcacy of different treatment technologies for the removal of TrOCs from wastewater. Meta-analyses have
proven extremely useful for the quantitative synthesis and interpretation of large-scale datasets, and have been widely applied in the medical, ecological and toxicological sciences. Conventional approaches to
meta-analysis have allowed within-study effect sizes to be effectively
compared and tested for heterogeneity amongst sets of pre-dened
treatment conditions (Field and Gillett, 2010). Analogous techniques
have also been successfully applied to compare between-study experimental outcomes (Melvin and Houlahan, 2012; Melvin and Wilson,
2013). In terms of evaluating sewage treatment technologies, the latter
approach offers a mechanism to control for the known variability in removal amongst different classes of organic contaminants.
The present study describes a systematic review and meta-analysis
aimed at comparing the overall effectiveness of major sewage treatment technologies for eliminating a range of common and widespread
emerging organic pollutants.
2. Methods
A comprehensive two-phase literature survey was performed to
identify studies reporting the removal efciency of TrOCs from wastewater treatment systems, on a global scale. Web of Knowledge, Science Direct, and Google Scholar were searched using various
combinations of the search terms: wastewater, sewage, efuent,
contaminant, chemical, pharmaceutical, endocrine disrupting compound, EDC, PPCP, removal, elimination, and treatment. The initial
search (Phase 1) was purposefully broad, the criteria for inclusion simply being studies where 1) a full-scale wastewater treatment system
was evaluated, 2) the major treatment technology was clearly dened,

3) the primary source of wastewater was domestic sewage, and 4) percentage removal was reported for clearly identied organic contaminant(s). When percentage removal was not directly reported, studies
were still included provided removal (R) could be calculated based on
concentrations at the inuent and efuent (Eq. (1)).

R %

C Influent C Effluent
 100
C Influent

An extensive dataset was established through the Phase 1 literature

survey, and this was subsequently used to rene the scope of the metaanalysis by directing a more focused systematic literature search (Phase
2). The dataset compiled through Phase 1 was sorted by contaminant
and ltered by treatment technology, and those compounds where removal estimates were available for multiple technologies were shortlisted for a further search of the literature using a revised set of search
terms. Five main treatment technologies were identied for inclusion:
conventional activated sludge (CAS), oxidation ditch (OD), membrane
bioreactor (MBR), ponds and constructed wetlands (PCW), and trickling/biological lters (TBF). All contaminants where removal data was
identied for at least three of these systems were included for the
Phase 2 literature search, which was performed using revised search
terms including a combination of (i) the contaminant name, (ii) each
of the 5 identied treatment technologies, and (iii) the keywords removal, elimination, and treatment. The selection criteria for including
a study were the same as previously described for the Phase 1 literature
search. For all papers that met the selection criteria the contaminant of
interest, the treatment technology, and the reported or calculated removal efciency (% reduction) were recorded, and the sorption coefcient (Kow) for each compound was obtained from the USEPA
Estimation Program Interface (EPI) Suite (USEPA, 2015). The ow
rate of sewage entering the system (m3/day) was recorded whenever
this information was provided.
Following the extensive two-phase literature search, all compounds
with removal estimates available for each of the 5 treatment technologies were included for analysis. To compare removal efciencies
amongst the specied treatment technologies, the removal data was
converted into a Standardized Removal Efciency (SRE) for each contaminant independently (Eq. (2)). Where, x represents each individual
removal efciency (% reduction) data point, represents the average removal efciency for each compound across all 5 treatment technologies,
and is the standard deviation of the removal efciencies across all 5
treatment technologies.

SRE

x

The average SRE for each treatment option (for each contaminant)
was calculated and analysed for signicant differences in the average
SREs (of all contaminants) using randomizations without replacement.
This approach is well suited for investigating differences in betweenstudy effect sizes (Adams et al., 1997; Gurevitch and Hedges, 1999),
and has been effectively applied to analyse similarly structured datasets
exploring ecological and toxicological processes (Melvin and Houlahan,
2012; Melvin and Wilson, 2013). The randomizations were performed
using MS Excel (Microsoft, Inc.), by calculating the absolute differences
in the average of all SREs amongst the 5 treatment technologies, and
then randomly reassigning the data to the different groups and
recalculating the differences. 10,000 permutations of the data were performed to determine the probability of randomly observing differences
in standardized removal amongst re-sampling groups that were greater
than or equal to those reported for the different treatment technologies,
using = 0.05 as the signicance threshold.

S.D. Melvin, F.D.L. Leusch / Environment International 9293 (2016) 183188

185

3. Results and discussion

3.1. Overview of data collection
The initial Phase 1 literature survey identied removal data for a
wide range of TrOCs, including a preponderance of data for EDCs and
PPCPs. However, after sorting and ltering the data, the comprehensive
Phase 2 search identied only 20 contaminants (Table 1) where removal data was available for all 5 major treatment technologies, for a
total of 976 removal efciency data points (Supplementary Table 1).
The data was dominated by studies investigating CAS treatment
(49.1%), followed by PCW (25.7%), OD (13.2%), MBR (7.2%) and nally
TBF (4.8%). Such disproportion in the spread of the data across treatment technologies supports the use of permutation tests (randomizations) for data analysis (Schulz and Grimes, 2002), and also highlights
a need for research evaluating organic contaminant removal from
other widely used sewage treatment options. It is also worth highlighting the variance in average removal (%) of the studied TrOCs within the
various treatment technologies, since this illustrates the need for standardized meta-analysis approaches to effectively compare treatment efcacy between technologies (Fig. 1).
The average ow rates reported for CAS treatment systems were
markedly greater than those reported for all other technologies (Fig.
2), which likely reects the comparatively high level of implementation
of this technology for treating domestic waste in major metropolitan
areas around the world. Contrarily, PCW systems tend to be most commonly applied to treat smaller populations and are frequently used in
rural and remote communities, and developing countries (Jasper et al.,
2013; Kivaisi, 2001). As such, ow rates were correspondingly low for
PCW systems, whereas the other treatment options exhibited comparable ow (Fig. 2).
3.2. Comparing SREs and controlling for heterogeneity
Analysis of the full dataset identied a signicant overall difference
in removal of organic contaminants achieved amongst the 5 investigated treatment technologies (Fig. 3a). The results demonstrate that
treatment with TBF achieves the poorest overall removal for EDCs and
PPCPs, followed closely by CAS and PCW systems. Treatment using OD
was found to achieve signicantly greater overall removal compared
to TBF, but no signicant difference was identied between OD and
any of the other treatment technologies. The greatest comparative SRE

Fig. 1. Average removal (%) of the studied TrOCs amongst the various treatment
technologies. Boxplots display interquartile range, median (horizontal line), min and
max (whiskers), and average (+) of the 20 compounds included in the nal dataset.

was achieved in studies reporting contaminant removal using MBR systems, although this technology also exhibited the greatest heterogeneity (Fig. 3a). The cause of increased heterogeneity in MBR systems was
not immediately apparent, but closer inspection revealed very poor
comparative removal of the synthetic musk tonalide using this technology (Table 1). The literature search only identied a single removal estimate for tonalide using MBR treatment (Supplementary Table 1),
raising the possibility that anomalous outcomes for poorly studied compounds could introduce bias into the analysis. This is somewhat comparable to the phenomenon known as availability bias, where outcomes in
meta-analyses are inuenced by the selective inclusion of the most
readily accessible literature (Rothstein et al., 2006).
Therefore, the SRE values for each compound was weighted based on
the number of data points available for each treatment technology
(Eq. (3)), where, n is the number of removal estimates obtained for
each specic treatment technology, and N is the total number of data
points for that contaminant.
SRE0

SRE  n
N

Analysis of the weighted data found CAS to be less effective than all
other treatment technologies (Fig. 3b). It is important to recognize that
the number of data points available for any given treatment technology
does not necessarily provide a strong indication of the reliability of a
study, and the true comparative removal efcacies therefore likely fall

Table 1
Average weighted Standardized Removal Efciencies (SRE) for each of the studied TrOCs amongst the 5 major treatment technologies. Bolded values indicate the treatment technology
with the highest SRE for each compound.
Sorption

Compound

Log Kow

CAS

MBR

OD

PCW

TBF

Low

Caffeine
Metoprolol
Sulfamethoxazole
Trimethoprim
17-Estradiol
Bisphenol A
Carbamazepine
Ethinylestradiol
Estriol
Estrone
Ibuprofen
Ketoprofen
Naproxen
Propranolol
Diclofenac
Galaxolide
Gembrozil
Nonylphenol
Tonalide
Triclosan

0.1
1.9
0.9
0.9
4.0
3.3
2.5
3.7
2.5
3.1
3.9
3.1
3.2
3.5
4.5
5.4
4.8
5.8
5.8
4.8

0.039
0.239
0.003
0.226
0.100
0.028
0.011
0.071
0.036
0.106
0.087
0.153
0.034
0.059
0.129
0.150
0.090
0.144
0.072
0.052
1.182

0.054
0.157
0.017
0.013
0.063
0.019
0.011
0.046
0.043
0.036
0.018
0.055
0.031
0.125
0.004
0.050
0.071
0.006
0.080
0.001
0.594

0.002
0.017
0.001
0.016
0.080
0.070
0.021
0.127
0.090
0.052
0.011
0.013
0.026
0.042
0.033
0.035
0.028
0.028
0.058
0.071
0.461

0.011
0.138
0.035
0.168
0.050
0.019
0.016
0.043
0.087
0.013
0.116
0.091
0.001
0.077
0.188
0.216
0.156
0.119
0.077
0.066
0.257

0.002
0.038
0.002
0.029
0.007
0.004
0.007
0.060
0.010
0.005
0.000
0.006
0.030
0.030
0.021
0.019
0.033
0.058
0.017
0.055
0.156

Medium

High

Overall SRE (total)

186

S.D. Melvin, F.D.L. Leusch / Environment International 9293 (2016) 183188

somewhere between the unweighted (Fig. 3a) and weighted (Fig. 3b)
data. Nevertheless, this clearly demonstrates that 1) the most widely
used sewage treatment technology globally appears to provide the
poorest comparative removal of a range of important TrOCs, and
2) more research is necessary to evaluate treatment technologies
other than CAS. This is of further importance because it illustrates the
risk of uncertainty that is associated with making conclusions based
on individual studies, and demonstrates how consideration of a broader
dataset allows stronger conclusions to be made.
In meta-analyses, it is important to consider and account for as many
sources of heterogeneity as possible, as this lends strength when
interpreting results and forming overall conclusions (Higgins and
Thompson, 2002). In the present study, the impact of hydraulic ow
rate and the lipophilicity (Kow) of the studied compounds were evaluated as potential sources of heterogeneity. A pH dependent octanolwater partition coefcient (Dow) can often be calculated provided Kow
and the acid dissociation constant of the compound is known (pKa),
and this can also serve as a robust indicator of sorption potential (Supplementary Table 2). However, it was not possible to consider this as a
possible source of heterogeneity, due to incomplete reporting of water
quality characteristics amongst the included studies.
The differences in ow rates observed amongst the various treatment technologies could be expected to have a signicant inuence
on removal efciencies, although this may not hold true for all

treatment systems (Dong et al., 2011). Nevertheless, in light of the pronounced differences in the proportion of data pertaining to the different
treatment technologies (i.e., signicantly more studies related to CAS
systems), hydraulic loading rate was controlled for as a potential source
of heterogeneity in the global dataset. Roughly 30% of studies did not report sewage ow rate, making mathematical correction (i.e., weighting
data based on ow rate) a tenuous approach. Since the average ow rate
reported for CAS systems was notably greater than the ow to all other
treatment options (Fig. 2), a subgroup analysis was performed
(Borenstein and Higgins, 2013) using only those CAS studies with reported ow rate less than or equal to 65,000 m3/day. Unfortunately,
there was no mechanism to effectively adjust the lower ow rates commonly reported for PCW systems. However, if ow truly represents an
important source of heterogeneity, re-analysis after exclusion of a
large proportion of CAS studies would be expected to yield a dramatically different outcome.
This was not the case, and the overall results of the subgroup analysis were highly comparable with that observed with the full unweighted
global dataset (Fig. 4a). This suggests that differences in ow rates
amongst studies are not a major factor inuencing comparative SREs
amongst the 5 treatment technologies. For consistency, the SREs of the
subgroup data were weighted based on the number of available removal estimates for each treatment option, and this again revealed a
similar pattern to the full weighted data set (Fig. 4b). To clarify, the
fact that ow rate was not found to be a major source of heterogeneity
in the present study does not mean that this is not an important factor
inuencing chemical removal amongst different approaches to sewage
treatment. However, the goal of the present meta-analysis is to provide
a broad comparison of contaminant removal efciencies amongst different types of sewage treatment systems, and it is somewhat outside of
the scope of the present dataset to explore removal mechanisms.
Another potential source of heterogeneity could relate to differences
in sorption coefcients (Kow) of the studied compounds. Numerous researchers have indicated that sorption is a key factor inuencing chemical removal during wastewater treatment (Cirja et al., 2008; Luo et al.,
2014; Rogers, 1996), although it has also been suggested that sorption
may be far less important than other factors (Andersen et al., 2005).
While there is some evidence suggesting similar sorption capacity between CAS and MBR treatment systems (Cirja et al., 2008), differences
in Kow were nevertheless explored as a potential source of heterogeneity in the global dataset. This was again achieved by performing subgroup analysis, this time by splitting the full dataset into three groups

Fig. 3. Standardized Removal Efciencies (mean 95 CI) for a) for the full unweighted
dataset (SRE), and b) with data weighted by the number of removal estimates available
for each of the various treatment option (SRE).

Fig. 4. Standardized Removal Efciencies (mean 95 CI) for a) for the subgroup analysis
with CAS loading rates b 65.000 m3/day (SRE), and b) with data weighted by the number
of removal estimates for each treatment option (SRE).

Fig. 2. Average reported loading rates to the different treatment systems (m3/day) from
the full global dataset. Dashed line indicates the 65,000 m3/day cut-off for inclusion in
the related sub-group analysis.

S.D. Melvin, F.D.L. Leusch / Environment International 9293 (2016) 183188

representing compounds with low (4 chemicals with Log Kow b 2.5),

medium (10 chemicals with Log Kow between 2.5 and 4), and high (6
chemicals with Log Kow N 4) sorption potential (Cirja et al., 2008; Luo
et al., 2014; Rogers, 1996). Results indicate that sorption potential is indeed an important consideration that can inuence the relative removal
of TrOCs, as the outcomes of the analysis changed somewhat when considering different sub-groups.
There were several noteworthy variations in comparative SREs when
compounds with low sorption coefcients (Log Kow b 2.5) were
analysed separately. The greatest overall removal was still achieved
using MBR, but variance was much greater than when the full dataset
was considered as a whole, and particularly so for TBF systems (Fig.
5a). Results were very similar between the subgroup analysis of medium sorption compounds (2.5 Log Kow 4) and the full dataset,
with the greatest removal achieved through MBR followed by OD, and
all other options exhibiting similarly low comparative removal efciencies (Fig. 5b). Finally, a dramatic deviation from the analysis of the full
dataset was observed when the high sorption potential subgroup (Log
Kow N 4) was analysed separately. Compounds with high sorption coefcients exhibited highly variable comparative removal efciencies for
all treatment technologies (with the exception of CAS where only moderate variance was observed), such that the analysis revealed no significant differences in SRE amongst any of the 5 treatment options (Fig. 5c).
This is at rst somewhat surprising; however, upon further consideration it is reasonable based on what is known about chemical removal
via sorption. For example, compounds with high sorption potential
should be effectively removed via conventional treatment, and while
CAS exhibited poor removal when the full dataset was analysed, it
was observed to achieve comparatively good removal based on the results of the high sorption subgroup analysis (Fig. 5c). This does not
change the fact that the overall analysis revealed CAS to exhibit no
major benet for removing the 20 studied TrOCs compared to the
other treatment technologies, but the shift in relative SREs observed

Fig. 5. Standardized Removal Efciencies (mean 95 CI) of TrOCs with a) low (Log
Kow b 2.5), b) medium (2.5 Log Kow 4) and c) high (Log Kow N 4) sorption potential.

187

for high sorption contaminants ts with expectations of improved removal in CAS.

Interestingly, PCW treatment systems were identied as being the
most effective at removing the largest number of contaminants from
wastewater (i.e., trimethoprim, ketoprofen, diclofenac, galaxolide,
tonalide, and triclosan). However, simple addition of the SREs for all
contaminants supports the results of the overall analysis, with MBR
yielding the greatest total SRE value (Table 1). This indicates that although PCW effectively removed the greatest proportion of the studied
contaminants, overall differences in removal were negligible in these
cases. Thus, it must be considered that the analysis was inuenced by
the choice of contaminants, which was ultimately inuenced by the
availability of published removal estimates for the 5 studied treatment
technologies. From another perspective, it is extremely important to acknowledge that different contaminants will pose different levels of risk
to aquatic animals and ecosystems. For example, steroidal estrogens
may arguably represent the greatest risk of all TrOCs included in the
analysis, due to their ability to elicit negative outcomes related to reproductive health and population tness in aquatic vertebrates at low ng/L
concentrations (Kidd et al., 2007). Bearing in mind the greater risk
posed by estrogenic EDCs, it may therefore be relevant to highlight
that OD treatment most effectively removed all of the estrogenic EDCs
considered in the analysis (i.e., 17-estradiol, bisphenol A,
ethinylestradiol, estriol, and estrone). Thus, despite PCW removing the
greatest number of compounds and MBR exhibiting the greatest overall
comparative removal, OD may be the most effective treatment option
for reducing the ultimate ecological risk from TrOCs in sewage
wastewater.

4. Conclusions
Choosing the most effective sewage treatment technology for any
given situation requires careful consideration of various environmental,
economic, and social implications. The present study addresses the
identied need for research assessing the comparative removal efciencies of various leading sewage treatment technologies, but does not
consider economic or social aspects. One important outcome from the
analysis is the observation that CAS treatment systems are ostensibly
the least-effective options for removing EDCs and PPCPs from wastewater. Considering that CAS systems are also not considered to be costeffective, this highlights the need to identify effective solutions to improve global sewage treatment. The results reveal that MBR systems
may offer the highest level of removal of organic contaminants. However, issues with membrane fouling continue to present difculties
and raise operational expenditures, and unless practical solutions are
identied the benets of MBR treatment may not outweigh the costs.
A wide range of chemical characteristics, operational parameters,
and various other factors can inuence the removal of organic contaminants from sewage. Due to inconsistencies in reporting, it was unfortunately not possible to effectively control for all possible sources of
heterogeneity through the analysis of the data. Nevertheless, several
factors known to inuence chemical removal were controlled for
(i.e., ow rate and sorption potential) with no major impact on the
overall conclusions of the study. It can therefore be concluded that
MBR systems exhibit marginally greater overall removal for a range of
contaminants, compared to other leading treatment options. However,
a consideration of construction and operational costs, relative toxicities
of different contaminants, and the induced environmental threat associated with the high energy consumption of advanced treatment
(e.g., MBR) are all important when evaluating the benets of different
treatment technologies. While this falls outside the scope of the present
analysis, this study provides a rst of its kind comparative assessment of
leading sewage treatment technologies, and is therefore an important
contribution to discussions surrounding the identication of effective
options for the elimination of important TrOCs from wastewater.

188

S.D. Melvin, F.D.L. Leusch / Environment International 9293 (2016) 183188

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at http://dx.

doi.org/10.1016/j.envint.2016.03.031.
Acknowledgements
Funding was provided through a 2016 Grifth University Postdoctoral Fellowship (No. 219059) award to S.D.M. and the Queensland Government Science Funding scheme (No. RRP-11/12-13). The funding
source had no role in the design, collection, analysis and interpretation
of data, or decision to submit the article for publication.
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