WEEKLY EDITION APRIL 18, 2018
Pharmaceuticals in Wastewater: Implications for the Portable
Sanitation Industry…continued
By Karleen Kos, PSAI Executive Director
In 2014 the EPA published the largest study to that date on this topic. They analyzed wastewater from 50 treatment plants
across the US for the presence of 54 different active pharmaceutical ingredients. The findings continued to suggest that drug
concentrations were low enough to make the water safe to drink, but the data was less clear about its impact on the ecosystem.
Later observations noted changes in fish behavior, bugs, and other aquatic species.
In February of 2017 the Arabian Journal of Chemistry published a paper analyzing the presence of pharmaceuticals in
wastewater in a city of about 1.1 million in Saudi Arabia. The scientists' extensive study found:
The removal efficiency of pharmaceuticals from wastewater is actually dependent on several factors including
the climatic conditions, the type of wastewater treatment and its operational conditions (e.g. temperature,
redox conditions, solids and hydraulic retention time) as well as the age of the activated sludge used in the
plant, but the main factor is reported to be the physico-chemical nature of most pharmaceuticals, which is the
acidity and high solubility in water with very low solid–liquid partition. […]
[…S]ome of the pharmaceuticals that were detected in the wastewater were also found in the sludge of the
wastewater treatment plants. This is due to the low solubility of such drugs. […]
When considering a single pharmaceutical at low concentrations such as those reported in this investigation
and other work, it may be assumed that not many health risks can be associated with long term exposure to
such a drug. But the health risks associated with exposure to a large number of pharmaceuticals, their
metabolites, and transformation products, even at low concentrations, cannot be ignored.
Then, this week the European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction released data gathered in
2016 showing the presence of cocaine
residue in the water supply in several
European cities. While monitoring of
wastewater for illicit drugs is something
they do regularly to determine the
amount of illicit drug use, it is a further
reminder that the water supply contains
pharmaceuticals of all types that both
need to be removed through treatment
and which remain in trace amounts that
can affect people over time.
PAGE 3
CONTINUED ON PAGE 4
