Due to the improvement in organic trace analysis of pharmaceutical substances and residues, detection rates down to the ng/L range are possible today. Case relevant research studies show that treatment of pharmaceuticals and complexing agents in municipal waste water treatment plants is insufficient. A main source of these contaminations are human and animal faeces, which enters the treatment plant through the sewer system. For complexing agents already relevant threshold limits exist - EDTA and NTA are defined for instance in the EU water framework guideline as priority substances. Regulations for the residue of pharma-ceuticals in water are expected for the near future. Therefore the feasibility of an oxidative treatment for waste water from different sources (municipal waste water treatment effluents, as well as waste water from hospitals and manufacturing companies) was investigated in these PhD-Thesis. Treatment facilities in laboratory and technical scale were constructed and used for test runs with different operating parameters. On the basis of these results together with an estimation of specific operating and treatment costs, an evaluation for the practical application of the oxidative treatment method by means of ozonation and anodic oxidation for central and decentralized waste water treatment has been carried out.