Nordic Life Science 1
ENVIRONMENT // THE BALTIC SEA 64 P harmaceutical
residues in the environment are a growing concern. Active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are a wide and diverse group of compounds. They are designed to cure, treat, and prevent diseases and their benefits to humans are undisputable. The consumption of medicines and improper waste management, however, also exposes other organisms to APIs. Most active pharmaceutical ingredients are designed to affect biological organisms at low concentrations. Toxicity is an important and inbuilt property of many pharmaceuticals, such as antibiotics and cytostatics. Furthermore, APIs have to be persistent enough to reach the target organ and to produce the desired medicinal effect. These properties make pharmaceuticals effective. At the same time, they increase the environmental risk of undesired effects on non-target species. Active pharmaceutical ingredients have been detected in the environment on every continent (aus der Beek et al., 2016). In 2017 UNESCO and the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM) compiled information about pharmaceutical residues in the Baltic Sea region. It became clear that in the Baltic Sea region APIs such as carbamazepine and primidone are also widely detected in environmental samples. A dozen risk APIs identified While the report by UNESCO and HELCOM compiled the information available by 2014, it also identified several knowledge gaps. In our project CWPharma, funded by the EU programme Interreg Baltic Sea Region, we aimed to fill in these gaps. The project was a collaboration between leading environmental organizations, waterworks associations and operators, research organizations and medicinal authorities in seven countries in the Baltic Sea region. During 2017–2020 the CWPharma project worked to identify the APIs that cause the highest environmental risks in the Baltic Sea region, and to find the best ways to decrease the API emissions into the environment. With extensive sampling and testing, we identified 12 risk APIs where concentrations in the environment exceed the predicted no-effect concentrations. These substances include e.g., the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory diclofenac, antibiotics clarithromycin, ofloxacin and doxycycline, as well as the hormones norethisterone and estrone (Ek Henning et al., 2020). Enhanced wastewater treatment can help but has its price tag Pharmaceuticals consumed and excreted by humans are usually flushed into the sewer network and then further to a centralized wastewater treatment plant. Thus, one of the most effective ways to reduce pharmaceutical load on the environment is to enhance wastewater treatment. Technologies that can remove pharmaceutical residues already exist. These technologies include e.g., oxidation using ozone and sorption using activated carbon, which are already used in some of the wastewater treatment plants in the Baltic Sea region. For instance, ozonation is already in operation in Linköping, Sweden and Kalundborg, Denmark. T The CWPharma project screened APIs s in six river basin districts to get a better picture of their sources, emissions and environmental concentrations in the Baltic Sea region. 12 out of 75 studied pharmaceuticals were identified as a risk to the environment. he studies in the CWPharma project show that the loads of two high risk APIs, namely diclofenac and clarithromycin, could be significantly reduced by wider use of ozonation technology. Diclofenac and clarithromycin Baltic Sea loads could be reduced by approximately 70%, if ozonation was added to the process in all the wastewater treatment plants that serve more than 50,000 persons (Äystö and Stapf, 2020). The recent EU proposal for updated Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive would require technology that can remove micropollutants, such as pharmaceutical residues, from wastewater treatment plants that serve 100,000 persons or more. While enhanced wastewater treatment has the potential to reduce the environmental loads of several problematic APIs and other contaminants, it increases treatment costs. It also increases the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the treatment. ENVIRONMENT // COMMENTARY PHOTO KATRI SIIMES/CWPHARMA