The Effect of the Leachate from Feminine Hygiene Products on the Survival of Daphnia magna

The purpose of this experiment was to determine the effect of leachate from different brands of feminine hygiene products on the survival of Daphnia magna. The hypothesis was that if the brand of feminine hygiene product contains fragrance, then less Daphnia magna will survive than if exposed to fragrance-free brands of feminine hygiene leachate. The experiment used tampons of different brands: three scented and four unscented. The six brands used were Tampax Pearl (unscented and scented), Lola (unscented), Kortex (scented), Equate (unscented), O.B. (unscented), and Playtex Sport (scented). The leachate is created with three tampons from each brand and placed into a beaker with 250 milliliters of distilled water. The tampons were left in the solution for 24 hours. The study tested D. magna exposed to the different brands of leachate along with a control group of Daphnia magna exposed to no leachate. The results showed that the Tampax Pearl Scented had a higher number of deaths than the Tampax Pearl Unscented. The average mortality of the Daphnia magna exposed to the fragranced brands of leachate was higher than the Daphnia magna exposed to fragrance-free leachates. This study shows that the D. magna exposed to feminine hygiene products with fragrances had a higher number of deaths than those that were exposed to fragrance-free feminine hygiene products. The data collected was analyzed using a Chi Square Test of Independence. There was no statistical significance found X^2=2.95, df=28, p=1 between the mortality/survival of the organisms