Optical brighteners, also sometimes referred to as Fluorescent Whitening Agents, are very much a ‘modern’ water quality problem as they are used in laundry detergent and similar products. Whilst they are helpful in keeping your whites crisp and sparkling, they have also become a rather novel indicator of pollution in environmental waters.
Due to their fairly unique point of production as a laundry product, when they are present in water alongside an increase in coliforms it is indicative of either an untreated wastewater discharge or similar event happening. Researchers noticed a correlation between the two and it has made optical brighteners a useful tool in some scenarios.
