Films on water quality

“Surface Waters – places of invisible pollution”: Pharmaceuticals are a special class of micro-pollutants – when present at low concentrations they can be potent pollutants in the environment. Humans are using increasing amounts of drugs and many of them are excreted and pass waste treatment systems unchanged to end up in surface waters. In the laboratory zebrafish are being used to investigate the effects of individual pharmaceuticals and to assess the risks of their release into the environment. Mixtures of pollutants may even have different effects, therefore cocktails of pharmaceuticals, and/or other chemicals are tested on aquatic biofilm communities to measure toxicity or study changes in these micro ecosystems. Another problem is posed by improper use of antibiotics, their discards and subsequent release into sewage systems. The development of drug resistant bacteria, pose a serious risk to human health.

– See more at: http://www.eusem.com/main/CE/SIP_C3edu2013
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Our bodies don’t absorb all the pharmaceutical drugs we take. Much of them pass through our systems into urine and then end up in wastewater treatment plants. Researchers at Michigan Engineering are working to detect those pharmaceuticals and test approaches to remove them. Nancy Love, a professor of civil and environmental engineering, discusses what we know and what we don’t know about this issue. She discusses her relevant research and gives advice on how consumers can best filter pharmaceuticals out at the tap.

About the Professor: Nancy Love (http://cee.engin.umich.edu/Nancy_Love) is a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering (http://cee.engin.umich.edu/) at the University of Michigan College of Engineering (http://www.engin.umich.edu/). Her research interests include environmental biotechnology and water quality with an emphasis on engineered treatment systems.