Occurrence of anticancer drugs and widely used pharmaceuticals in sewage sludge, compost, and river sediment.
Alitalo OS, Gutovskaia E, Rantalainen AL, Pellinen J
Soil Health
Compost you buy at a garden center or spread from municipal sources may carry trace amounts of pharmaceutical drugs that sewage treatment failed to break down — and no one is required to test for them.
When we flush medications, they travel through sewage plants that weren't designed to destroy them. This study tested sludge and compost from those plants and found two drugs — a common anti-seizure medication and an anti-inflammatory painkiller — still present after treatment. That treated sludge often becomes the compost used to grow food and amend garden soil, meaning those drug residues may be quietly entering the ground beneath our feet.
Key Findings
Diclofenac (an anti-inflammatory) was the most concentrated drug found in sewage sludge, reaching up to 213 ng/g dry weight.
Carbamazepine (an anti-seizure drug) persisted through composting and was detected in both compost and river sediment, while the other three drugs largely did not.
Cancer drug tamoxifen was detected in sewage sludge (5–19 ng/g dw) but not in compost or river sediment, suggesting partial removal during treatment.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Researchers found that common medications — including an anti-seizure drug and a painkiller — survive sewage treatment and end up in the compost that gardeners and farmers spread on soil. The drugs carbamazepine and diclofenac were detected in compost and river sediment, raising concerns about their accumulation in agricultural land.
Abstract Preview
Pharmaceuticals enter the environment mainly via municipal wastewater treatment plants, where some compounds bind to sewage sludge during treatment processes. The contaminated sludge often undergoe...
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