Monitoring of selected veterinary antibiotics in environmental compartments near a composting facility in Gangwon Province, Korea.

Many studies have been recently reported that veterinary antibiotics released into the environment have a detrimental effect on humans such as the occurrence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. However, only limited information is available regarding to the release of antibiotics in environmental compartments in Korea. Objectives of this study were to evaluate the concentrations of antibiotics in water, sediment, and soil adjacent to a composting facility in Korea and to determine the dilution effects of antibiotics when released into the environment. Seven antibiotics of chlortetracycline, oxytetracycline, tetracycline, sulfamethazine, sulfamethoxazole, sulfathiazole, and tylosin were evaluated by high-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry following pretreatment using solid-phase extraction to clean the samples. Results showed that the highest concentration of each antibiotic in both aqueous and solid samples was detected from a site adjacent to the composting facility. We also found that the studied water, sediment, and soil samples are contaminated by veterinary antibiotics throughout comparison with studies from other countries. However, relatively lower concentrations of each antibiotic were observed from the rice paddy soil located at the bottom of the water stream. Further research is necessary to continuously monitor the antibiotics release into ecosystems, thereby developing an environmental risk assessment.