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Worldwide cases of water pollution by emerging contaminants: a review
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A global review of emerging contaminants in water bodies found that microplastics, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and other unregulated pollutants are increasingly detected in drinking water and wastewater systems across China, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil, with conventional treatment plants unable to remove most of them. Microplastics are particularly concerning among emerging contaminants because they persist in the environment, accumulate in aquatic food webs, and serve as carriers for co-occurring chemical pollutants.
Water contamination by emerging contaminants is increasing in the context of rising urbanization, industrialization, and agriculture production. Emerging contaminants refers to contaminants for which there is currently no regulation requiring monitoring or public reporting of their presence in our water supply or wastewaters. There are many emerging contaminants such as pesticides, pharmaceuticals, drugs, cosmetics, personal care products, surfactants, cleaning products, industrial formulations and chemicals, food additives, food packaging, metalloids, rare earth elements, nanomaterials, microplastics, and pathogens. The main sources of emerging contaminants are domestic discharges, hospital effluents, industrial wastewaters, runoff from agriculture, livestock and aquaculture, and landfill leachates. In particular, effluents from municipal wastewater treatment plants are major contributors to the presence of emerging contaminants in waters. Although many chemicals have been recently regulated as priority hazardous substances, conventional plants for wastewater and drinking water treatment were not designed to remove most emerging contaminants. Here, we review key examples of contamination in China, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil. Examples include persistent organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls, dibenzofurans, and polybrominated diphenyl ethers, in lake and ocean ecosystems in China; emerging contaminants such as alkylphenols, natural and synthetic estrogens, antibiotics, and antidepressants in Portuguese rivers; and pharmaceuticals, hormones, cosmetics, personal care products, and pesticides in Mexican, Brazilian, and Colombian waters. All continents are affected by these contaminants. Wastewater treatment plants should therefore be upgraded, e.g., by addition of tertiary treatment systems, to limit environmental pollution.
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