**8. Acknowledgement**

This work was supported by the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) from Ministry of Higher Education, Malaysia (FP009/2010B).

#### **9. References**


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**10** 

**Health Risk Assessment** 

Olalekan Fatoki1, Olanrewaju Olujimi1,\*, James Odendaal1 and Bettina Genthe2

*Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town,* 

*1Faculty of Applied Sciences* 

*2CSIR, Stellenbosch,* 

*South Africa* 

**of Plasticizer in Wastewater Effluents** 

A variety of human activities e.g. agricultural activities, urban and industrial development, mining and recreation, significantly alter the quality of natural waters, and changes the water use potential (Spinks et al., 2006; Madungwe and Sakuringwa, 2007). The key to sustainable water resources is, therefore to ensure that the quality of water resources are suitable for their intended uses, while at the same time allowing them to be used and developed to a certain extent. Water quality management, therefore involves the maintenance of the fitness for use of water resources on a sustained basis, by achieving a balance between socio-economic development and environmental protection. Approximately 40 000 small-scale farmers, 15 000 medium-to-large-scale farmers, 120 000 permanent workers, and an unknown number of seasonal workers are involved in irrigation farming, which consumes approximately 51 to 61 % of South Africa's water on some 1,3 million hectares (Backeberg, 1996; Blignaut and Heerden, 2008). Irrigation farming contributes 25 to 30 % of South Africa's agricultural output. Agriculture is crucially important to the basic food security of the poor, who constitute 40 % of the population of 42 million, and who are overwhelmingly concentrated in rural areas and (peri-) urban

Like many countries in the world, water scarcity is becoming a major problem in South Africa (Marcucci & Tognotti, 2002; Oweis & Hachum, 2009; Komnenic *et al*., 2009) as dams serving communities with drinking water and water for daily household use, have been less than 30% full in recent years (Qiao *et al*., 2009; Malley *et al*., 2009). River water, in combination with groundwater, effluents from wastewater treatment plants, is considered a suitable alternative as a utilisable and potable water source (Blignaut and Heerden, 2008). To complement scare water resources, there has been increase in the number of wastewater facilities in many countries. This is to forestall the outbreak of environmental pollution and spread of diseases, remove conventional pollutants (such as ammonia and phosphate), and to maintain and restore the biologic integrity of surface waters (Wang *et al*., 2005; Sun *et al*., 2008). Domestic and industrial wastewaters are significant sources of endocrine disrupting chemicals

**1. Introduction** 

townships (Blignaut and Heerden, 2008).

**and Receiving Freshwater Systems** 

