Emerging Pollutants, Everlasting Concerns: Microplastics ad Pharmaceuticals

Asserts that pollutants of emerging concern, such as plastics and pharmaceuticals, exemplify the wicked nature of water quality issues: they remain complex and multifaceted, have no single solution, and attract divergent views from different stakeholders. Although far fewer data prove available on freshwater plastic pollution compared with marine systems, plastics, including microplastics, remain ubiquitous throughout all freshwater systems, and while awareness of the issues related to these two pollutants has grown, there remains a severe lack of data on the scale and scope of the problem and thus limited evidence on impacts. Optimal and efficient solutions to date remain uncertain. Even when technology exists, removing pharmaceuticals and micro- and nanoplastics from water proves costly and at times nearly impossible. Thus, prevention remains key along with a better understanding of the drivers of contamination from this heterogeneous group to clarify entry pathways into aquatic environments and define reliable methods for exposure and hazard assessment.