Abstract
The effects of surfactants on aquatic environment have been argued based on the points of aquatic acute toxicity, No Observed Effect Concentration, biodegradability, and so on. Recently, however, risk assessment has been applied to estimate the environmental acceptability of surfactants where ratio of Maximum Permissible Concentration (or NOEC) to Predicted Environmental Concentration is used as an indicator. Resent researches indicate that the major surfactants used in household laundry or cleaning product do not exert a harmful influence on aquatic environmental systems of rivers in Europe and/nor Japan. In future, new risk assessment methods considering the effect of water quality such as water hardness on the aquatic toxicity and the surfactant's character of adsorption on suspended materials in the natural water environment should be developed. In addition, the method to indirectly calculate NOEC of surfactants using acute toxicity data should be improved. Risk assessment of surfactants in aquatic environment should play a leading role in the study on evaluating chemical risks.
