Fighting drug pollution needs prevention and cleanup together
Akhrimenko V, Kümmerer K, Malato S, Lertxundi U, Orive G
Phytoremediation
The antibiotics and antidepressants that pass through our bodies and down the drain often end up in soil and waterways near farms and gardens, where they can affect the microbes plants depend on for healthy roots.
When people take medications, traces of those drugs end up in wastewater and eventually in rivers, soil, and even the water we use to irrigate crops. This paper makes the case that we need both smarter design of medicines from the start and better cleanup technology at treatment plants to solve the problem. New tools like gene-edited microbes and tiny sensors could help catch pollutants that current wastewater systems miss.
Key Findings
Pharmaceutical pollutants including antibiotics and antidepressants are now widespread across ecosystems worldwide.
European legislation has designated certain active pharmaceutical ingredients as priority pollutants requiring advanced wastewater treatment.
Biotechnological tools such as gene engineering, omics analysis, biosensors, and microfluidics remain underused in addressing this pollution.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists argue that fixing pharmaceutical pollution in water and soil requires two approaches at once: stopping drugs from entering the environment in the first place, and building better filtration systems to catch what's already there, using tools like gene engineering and biosensors.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Designing at-source and end-of-pipe biotechnologies to tackle pharmaceutical pollution.
Pharmaceutical pollution, defined as the presence of antibiotics, antidepressants, antidiabetics, and other pharmaceuticals in the environment, is a ubiquitous problem. Active pharmaceutical ingred...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
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