You are here

Your Vegetables Contaminated With Pharmaceuticals From Watering

Would you like some anti-epileptic medication with your salad? As global freshwater supplies continue to shrink, many countries have switched to using treated wastewater (filtered sewage water) for both large-scale and household vegetable growing. However, there is a dark side to this seemingly “green” practice: a recent study suggests that eating vegetables grown using this type of water “boosts urine levels of carbamazepine, an anti-epileptic drug commonly detected in wastewater”. Gross. C&EN reports: The randomized, controlled study is the first to directly address exposure to such pharmaceutical contaminants in humans, says coauthor Ora Paltiel, a professor of hematology and epidemiology at the Hadassah-Hebrew University. “We were very surprised that the effect was so clear.” Drugs can enter the water supply by excretion—through the urine of people who take them—or by disposal of unused medicines down the toilet or in the garbage, at home or in healthcare institutions like hospitals and nursing homes. Water disposed of by drug manufacturers can also contain residues of pharmaceutical compounds. Treatment for wastewater used in agriculture generally does not remove these trace chemicals because purifying such a large quantity of water to drinking water standards would be prohibitively expensive, says Benny Chefetz, a professor of soil science at [...]