Table of Contents
In Uppsala, Sweden, there is a new project to clean harmful drugs out of the water.
Every year, the water treatment plant in Uppsala cleans 20 million cubic meters of wastewater. In the water, they find small amounts of drugs that people take for depression, inflammation, anxiety, and high blood pressure.
These drugs are harmful to fish and amphibians and can damage the environment.
The project in Uppsala wants to remove 80% of five of these harmful drugs from the water. They use complex technologies like activated carbon and anion exchange to do this.
However, there are many different types of drugs in the water, so it’s difficult to find a method that removes all of them.
This is a big problem all over the world. Up to 90% of active drugs are excreted by our bodies.
This means that these drugs can end up in the environment. Stefan Berggren, Director at the Swedish Knowledge Centre for Pharmaceuticals in the Environment, says that these drugs can stay in the environment for a long time.
The European Union is working on a plan to reduce the environmental impact of these drugs. They want to make sure that pharmaceutical companies do an environmental risk assessment before they offer their drugs for sale.
Some people say that we need to make sure that the pharmaceutical industry develops more sustainable drugs.
The pilot project in Uppsala will end in 2024.
Vocabulary
- Harmful – damaging; hurtful; negative; bad for
- Drug – any natural or artificially made chemical that is used as a medicine; any natural or artificially made chemical that is taken for pleasure/fun, to improve performance or because a person feels like they need it; something people take to ‘feel good’
- Water treatment plant – A place where wastewater is cleaned so that it can be safely released back into the environment
- Cubic meter – A unit used to measure how much space something takes up, like a big box.
- Wastewater – Dirty water that goes down drains from homes or businesses
- Depression – A mental illness that causes a person to feel sad, hopeless, and have low energy
- Inflammation – When a part of your body gets red, swollen, and hurts
- Anxiety – A feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease
- Blood pressure – how strongly your blood is pushing against the walls of your blood vessels
- Amphibian – An animal that can live both in water and on land, like frogs or salamanders
- Environment – the natural world, the place we live, the area around us, nature
- Complex – Something that is made up of many parts or is difficult to understand
- Method – a way of doing something; procedure; technique; approach; way;
- Active drug – The part of a medicine that makes it work and helps you feel better
- Excrete – To get rid of waste from your body, like going to the bathroom or sweating
- End up – To reach a particular place or situation after a series of events; To finally arrive at a place or situation
- Director – boss, leader, head, manager
- The European Union (EU) – 27 countries in Europe that work closely together
- Plan – A detailed idea or strategy to reach a goal
- Reduce – to make less; make smaller; decrease; bring down; shrink
- Impact – influence; effect; consequence; to make change
- Pharmaceutical – Relating to drugs or medicines
- Risk assessment – Thinking about and understanding the possible dangers or problems that could happen
- Industry – business field; area of work or business; type of business
- Develop – to make into something more advanced; to improve; to grow something to become better
- Sustainable – something that you can continue to use without causing damage to the environment or using up all the resources; eco-friendly; not bad for the Earth;
Quiz
Discussion Questions
- What are some possible negative effects of harmful drugs in the water on the environment?
- What measures do you think individuals can take to minimize the release of drugs into the environment?
- How important do you think it is for governments to regulate the environmental impact of pharmaceutical drugs?
- What do you think are the challenges in developing more sustainable drugs?
Video
Original Story
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