Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Water Pollution: A Menace to Mankind

This review discusses sources of water contamination — including faecal, domestic, and industrial wastes — and their threats to human and aquatic health, with a focus on microplastic pollution as an emerging concern. The authors call for improved water management policies to safeguard human health.

2025 Sumerianz Journal of Medical and Healthcare
Article Tier 2

Human Health Risks due to Exposure to Water Pollution: A Review

This review looks at how water contamination from various sources -- including microplastics, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, and industrial chemicals -- threatens public health worldwide. The health effects depend on the type of pollutant and length of exposure, and the paper highlights that microplastics are an emerging concern because they can carry other toxic substances into drinking water.

2023 Water 318 citations
Article Tier 2

Emerging Pollutants in Wastewater: A Challenge for Water Reuse

This review examines emerging pollutants in wastewater as a central challenge for water reuse strategies, covering contaminants present at both domestic and industrial scales. It evaluates the sustainability benefits and treatment hurdles associated with recycling wastewater to address global water scarcity.

2025 Advances in water security
Article Tier 2

Fate of environmental pollutants

This annual review summarizes 2018 research on the occurrence and fate of environmental pollutants in wastewater, including antibiotic resistance genes, disinfection byproducts, and microplastics. Wastewater treatment plants are a major pathway for microplastics to enter the environment, making this literature critical for pollution control.

2019 Water Environment Research 40 citations
Article Tier 2

Impact of Waste Management on Public Health and Environmental Sustainability

This review analyzes major waste streams including municipal, industrial, biomedical, electronic, and radioactive waste and evaluates waste management practices and their environmental and health impacts. The study discusses how improper waste handling contributes to contamination including microplastic pollution, with unmanaged landfills and open burning releasing toxins linked to adverse health outcomes.

2026 Springer Link (Chiba Institute of Technology)
Article Tier 2

A multidimensional study of wastewater treatment

This review covers the full range of wastewater treatment approaches, from physical and chemical methods to biological and membrane-based technologies. The paper summarizes how different contaminant types — including microplastics — are handled by various treatment systems. It serves as a broad reference for understanding current wastewater management capabilities and limitations.

2022 International Journal of experimental research and review 7 citations
Article Tier 2

Emerging contaminants in municipal sewage/sludge: occurrence, risk assessment, and treatment technologies

This review documents the occurrence of emerging contaminants — including pharmaceuticals, microplastics, and endocrine disruptors — in municipal sewage and sludge, assessing their environmental risks and current removal efficiencies. The authors highlight that many contaminants persist through conventional treatment, entering soils via biosolid application and waterways via effluent discharge.

2024 IWA Publishing eBooks
Article Tier 2

Emerging pollutants in water environment: Occurrence, monitoring, fate, and risk assessment

This review summarizes research published in 2018 on emerging pollutants in water environments, covering their occurrence, detection methods, environmental fate, and ecological toxicity. Researchers highlight the challenge of assessing the vast number of emerging compounds, including microplastics, pharmaceuticals, and personal care products, that are now routinely found in water systems. The study emphasizes the need for improved analytical methods and risk assessment frameworks to address this growing category of environmental contaminants.

2019 Water Environment Research 229 citations
Article Tier 2

Emerging Drinking Water Borne Diseases: A Review on Types, Sources and Health Precaution

This review provides an overview of emerging waterborne diseases caused by physical, chemical, and biological contaminants in drinking water sources around the world. Researchers discuss how pollutants including microplastics, heavy metals, and microbial pathogens can enter water supplies through inadequate treatment and aging infrastructure. The study emphasizes the importance of improved water treatment and monitoring to protect public health from these diverse contamination sources.

2023 Journal of Pharmaceutical Research International 19 citations
Article Tier 2

Longitudinal study on the multifactorial public health risks associated with sewage reclamation

Researchers monitored six Spanish wastewater treatment plants over a full year and found that while the plants effectively removed respiratory viruses like SARS-CoV-2, microplastics and antibiotic-resistance genes persisted in both treated effluent and sewage sludge released into the environment. The findings underscore that current wastewater treatment is not designed to eliminate these emerging contaminants, raising concerns about their spread through recycled water and biosolids.

2024 npj Clean Water 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Detection and removal of microplastics in wastewater: evolution and impact

This review covers methods for detecting and removing microplastics from wastewater, which is a major pathway for microplastics to enter the environment. Microplastics in water can carry heavy metals, disease-causing organisms, and chemical additives, and are eventually consumed by aquatic life that enters the human food chain. The authors emphasize that better wastewater treatment technology is needed to reduce human exposure to microplastics through water and seafood.

2021 Environmental Science and Pollution Research 257 citations
Article Tier 2

Sewage reclamation process as multifactorial public health risk concern: a longitudinal study.

This year-long study analyzed influent, effluent, and biosolids from six Spanish wastewater treatment plants, identifying persistent emerging risks including pharmaceuticals, microplastics, and antibiotic resistance genes throughout the treatment process.

2024
Article Tier 2

Fate of Environmental Pollutants

This annual review covers the 2017 literature on the fate of emerging environmental pollutants in wastewater, noting that the volume of relevant research makes comprehensive coverage impossible. Microplastics and their chemical associations are among the emerging pollutants tracked through this type of annual review.

2018 Water Environment Research 19 citations
Article Tier 2

Emerging Contaminants in Drinking Water

This review examined emerging contaminants in drinking water, including microplastics, pharmaceutical residues, and disinfection byproducts, assessing their occurrence, treatment removal efficiencies, and implications for human health.

2024 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Paradigm shifts and current challenges in wastewater management.

This bibliometric review of global wastewater research identifies microplastics as an emerging contaminant of increasing concern in wastewater systems worldwide. The review highlights that microplastic removal from wastewater remains a major unsolved challenge and that treatment plants are currently significant pathways for microplastics entering the environment.

2020 Journal of hazardous materials
Article Tier 2

Microplastic Hazards on Water Quality and Human Health

This paper summarizes the hazards of microplastics to water quality and human health. It highlights key exposure routes and the range of potential health concerns associated with microplastic contamination in drinking water and food sources.

2021
Article Tier 2

Identification of biomarkers in wastewater-based epidemiology: Main approaches and analytical methods

This review covers biomarker identification in wastewater-based epidemiology, examining how emerging contaminants including microplastics and pharmaceuticals in wastewater can serve as population-level indicators of disease, health behaviors, and chemical exposures in cities.

2021 TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry 24 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastics toxicity, detection, and removal from water/wastewater

This review summarizes the current state of knowledge on microplastic toxicity and methods for detecting and removing them from water and wastewater. It covers the health risks posed by microplastics, including their ability to carry harmful chemicals and pathogens, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of various removal technologies. The authors highlight that while some treatment methods can remove most microplastics, no single approach is fully effective, and better solutions are needed to protect drinking water supplies.

2023 Marine Pollution Bulletin 66 citations
Article Tier 2

Insights into Global Water Reuse Opportunities

This review examines global opportunities and challenges for reusing treated wastewater, which is becoming increasingly important as water scarcity worsens worldwide. A key concern discussed is that recycled water may contain emerging contaminants including microplastics that current treatment methods do not fully remove. The findings highlight the need for advanced treatment technologies to ensure that water reuse does not become a pathway for microplastic exposure in communities.

2023 Sustainability 59 citations
Article Tier 2

Microplastic Impact: A Concise Overview of Pollution and Effects

This overview synthesizes evidence that microplastics are now widespread in both land and marine ecosystems, with wastewater treatment plants identified as major release points. Because microplastics accumulate through food chains, the review flags potential health concerns for aquatic animals and the humans who eat them, calling for standardized methods and better long-term studies.

2023 Preprints.org 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Accumulation of antibiotics in the environment: Have appropriate measures been taken to protect Canadian human and ecological health?

This review examines how antibiotics and other contaminants of emerging concern, including microplastics, are legally discharged into Canadian freshwater from treatment plants and accumulate in the environment. The buildup of these substances raises concerns about antibiotic resistance and ecosystem disruption, with potential downstream effects on human health through contaminated drinking water and food sources.

2024 Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 21 citations
Article Tier 2

Negative Impact of Dental Wastewater on the Environment and Human Health: A Scoping Review

This scoping review analyzed evidence on dental wastewater as a source of environmental and health risks, finding that it contains physical, chemical, and microbiological hazards — including plastic particles from dental materials — that are inadequately managed in most healthcare settings.

2025 Water Environment Research
Article Tier 2

Research progress on microplastics in wastewater treatment plants: A holistic review

This review provides a holistic assessment of microplastics in wastewater treatment plants, covering sampling methods, occurrence patterns across treatment stages, removal efficiencies, and the environmental risks posed by microplastic discharge through effluent and sludge.

2022 Journal of Environmental Management 88 citations
Article Tier 2

Impact of Wastewater on the Soil–Plant–Atmosphere Interface: Challenges and Remediation Approaches

This review examines the wide-ranging impacts of using wastewater for agricultural irrigation, covering effects on soil health, crop safety, and greenhouse gas emissions. Among the many concerns discussed, microplastics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria emerging from wastewater reuse are flagged as growing threats requiring better monitoring and policy responses. For readers interested in microplastics, the paper highlights how irrigation with wastewater is one of the pathways by which plastic particles enter farmland soils and ultimately the food chain.

2025 Science and Society Insights 1 citations