AsianScientist (Could. 21, 2026)– The on a regular basis medicines in our houses could also be a significant supply of water air pollution. A latest research of Hong Kong’s main rivers revealed that frequent over-the-counter (OTC) medicine accounted for 85 p.c of pharmaceutical air pollution within the moist season in comparison with simply 13 p.c for prescription medicines.
“We frequently assume that advanced or restricted prescription medicines pose the best environmental threat, however our findings shine a brand new mild on on a regular basis family medicines,” stated lead writer Professor Kenneth Mei-Yee Leung, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Marine Environmental Well being (SKLMEH) and Affiliate Dean of Science School at Metropolis College of Hong Kong (CityUHK).
As a result of medicines are designed to be efficient when taken orally, they usually have molecular properties that make them cell in water.
Nevertheless, these properties additionally enable them to simply journey in river environments, by estuaries and finally enter the ocean, the place they’ll pose threats to marine ecosystems. Pharmaceutical residues have been discovered even in deep seas and distant marine environments.
“Pharmaceutical air pollution just isn’t a neighborhood air pollution situation at a selected website. Therefore, we must always undertake a river-estuary-sea perspective to prioritise pollution for management and administration,” stated Leung.
Present out there analysis has targeted primarily on screening chemical substances for persistence, mobility, and toxicity (PMT) in site-specific threat assessments. Nevertheless, this doesn’t enable researchers to differentiate between pollution inflicting localised contamination and those who may very well be a bigger ecological risk.
Led by Leung, researchers from CityUHK and the Guangdong Analysis Institute of Water Sources and Hydropower, launched a brand new evaluation framework that additionally fashions the motion of those pollution.
“Our method integrates the river/estuary-to-sea transport trajectory modelling with consideration of persistence, mobility, and toxicity (PMT) of the pharmaceutical pollutant and thus the outcomes can higher consider and prioritise prescribed drugs for threat administration,” stated Leung.
Integrating a transport trajectory mannequin helped the researchers consider not solely how these chemical substances act on the pattern website, but in addition how they journey after coming into the river setting.
About 80 p.c of the prescribed drugs investigated have been discovered to be PMT pollution in water environments. Specifically, caffeine, paracetamol, cetirizine, cimetidine, sitagliptin, and fexofenadine have been recognized as precedence pollution for management within the investigated rivers because of their excessive potential to disperse into marine environments. Notably, the highest 4 precedence pollution have been all OTC medicine.
“As a result of OTC medicine are simply accessible and repeatedly consumed, they act as ‘pseudo-persistent’ pollution” defined Leung. “Even when they break down simply, our fixed use means they’re at all times current in our aquatic ecosystems.” For instance, caffeine and paracetamol usually are not persistent chemical substances by nature, however they have been nonetheless recognized as priorities for management.
The workforce prompt that focused interventions based mostly on rivers that disperse essentially the most high-priority prescribed drugs might successfully scale back pharmaceutical air pollution in aquatic environments. Upgrading sewage therapy and putting in stormwater retention tanks alongside main rivers might assist to mitigate emissions of pharmaceutical residues into the ocean.
“Elevating public consciousness can be important,” stated Leung. “Residents ought to return undesirable or expired medicines for correct disposal fairly than throwing them away or flushing them. Clearer authorities steering on protected drug disposal is urgently wanted.”
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Supply: Metropolis College of Hong Kong; Picture: wirestock/Magnific
This text might be discovered at Uncovering prevalence of environmentally cell prescribed drugs and their precedence management methods in river-estuary continuum of Hong Kong
Disclaimer: This text doesn’t essentially mirror the views of AsianScientist or its workers.
