生活垃圾可能为人用药物进入环境的重要途径·Pay attention to non-wastewater emission pathways of pharmaceuticals into environments

由于多数药物在人体内代谢率较低，药物被人服用后多数以原药或代谢产物的形式随尿液排泄进入生活污水厂，因此长期以来，生活污水被当做是水环境中药物污染物的重要来源。研究组通过质量衡算方法发现生活垃圾可能是药物进入环境的重要途径之一，部分其他研究者的结论也证明此观点。该成果发表在Chemosphere上。【全文链接】

Abstract

Pharmaceuticals have been widely detected in the aquatic environment and demonstrated to be potential risks to humans and the environment. Understanding emission pathways of pharmaceuticals is essential to the control of pharmaceutical contamination for environmental management. The present study is aimed at testing the hypothesis that non-wastewater pathway is also significant to the emission of pharmaceuticals into the environment. To this end, we compared the actual production with the amount of 12 antibiotics obtained by back calculation from sewage concentrations in Beijing, Guangzhou and Chongqing. The results showed that for over a half of investigated antibiotics, the emission through non-wastewater pathways accounted for approximately 30e80% of the total emission, varying with individual antibiotics. It was revealed that non-wastewater emission pathways could be of significance for pharmaceuticals emitted into the environment, of which disposed by household waste could be among the most important non-wastewater pathways.

见微知著·原始反终 ●新兴污染物环境归趋研究组（FECG）