Saturday, May 01, 2021

How Our Medicines Pollute the Environment

Recommendable! Reason for concern, but not for alarmism! The issue needs to be monitored! Better wastewater treatment plants may need to be developed etc.

"... In the 1970s, scientists began to detect the presence of drugs in aquatic ecosystems: antibiotics, analgesics, anti-inflammatory drugs, antihistamines, contraceptive oestrogens, clofibrate against cholesterol, and beta-blockers for hypertension, among others. Pharmacological contamination is now so ubiquitous that up to 631 active ingredients have been detected in 71 countries on all continents, according to a review of studies published by the German government in 2016. ...
Globally, the main source of this pollution is urban wastewater, i.e. drugs thrown away or expelled in the urine, although certain areas are affected by discharges from industry, hospitals or livestock farming. ...
that new advanced treatment technologies, such as oxidation using ultraviolet light and ozone, filtering water through activated carbon or reverse osmosis can improve removal."

How Our Medicines Pollute the Environment | OpenMind

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