Contaminants of Emerging Concern Are Here Now and Everywhere. Ozone can help.
Taking an antibiotic for an ear infection? Ingesting your daily oral contraceptive? Maybe you’re popping a painkiller for your arthritis.
All of these are common, regular uses of pharmaceuticals – products that are increasingly being consumed because of changing demographics and a desire to improve the quality of people’s lives. In fact, consumer spending globally on pharmaceuticals is expected to exceed $1.5 trillion by 2023.
However, with this increased usage comes rising environmental impacts. Water Canada reports that an estimated 30 to 90 per cent of oral pharmaceuticals or their by-products are excreted in the urine and feces of humans or animals taking the drugs.
These compounds find their way into watersheds because they are resistant to traditional water treatments. And, research shows that they can pollute the water, harm aquatic life, and, potentially, endanger human health.
Yet pharmaceutical compounds in wastewater are not yet monitored or controlled by any level of government.
Contaminants of Emerging Concern
That is why pharmaceuticals are considered to be a Contaminant of Emerging Concern (CEC) – a term used by water quality professionals to describe pollutants that have been detected in water bodies, that may cause ecological or human health issues, and typically are not monitored or regulated under current environmental laws.
Other CECs include pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs, pesticides, industrial chemicals, and personal care products.
What are some of the impacts of CECs? While each category has its own set of harmful effects, let’s consider surfactants. When surfactant-containing wastewater is discharged into the environment at a certain level of concentration, foam may appear on the water’s surface. This foam acts to reduce the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water, causing the death of aquatic organisms due to hypoxia and disrupting the aquatic ecosystem.
For humans, surfactants accumulate in the body over time and affect the lipid membranes that protect the cells in our bodies – causing irritation to skin, eyes, and the respiratory system. Both the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Environment and Climate Change Canada are reporting that CECs are increasingly and consistently being found in groundwater, surface water, municipal wastewater, drinking water, and food sources. And, traditional water treatments like chlorine or ultraviolet have proven to be essentially ineffective at eliminating CECs from water sources.
Ozone is a solution
Aclarus has long recognized that CECs are an issue that required research and action. In 2015, the company partnered with McGill University to study whether ozone could be used to neutralize or destroy CECs in wastewater. The study found that ozone was able to remove, on average, 86 per cent of a large variety of CECs, compared to an average of just seven per cent for ultraviolet (UV) treatment.
This ability to treat CECs is just one reason why ozone is the fastest-growing water treatment globally. Recognized in the U.S. and Canada as the fastest and strongest method of disinfection – faster and more powerful than Peroxyacetic acid (PAA), chlorine or UV – it is chemical-free and works on demand to disinfect and treat water for a variety of contaminants.
When ozone is dissolved in water, it instantly splits and kills the cells of contaminant organisms. In addition to removing many CECs, it eliminates virtually all bacteria, virus and cysts and removes organics and metals. Moreover, ozone simply breaks down to oxygen in the treated water, increasing oxygen levels in the water. It has no impact on PH levels, and, unlike chlorine, does not create a multitude of chemical by-products in the water. That means the ozone-treated effluent going back into the watershed is not only chemical-free, but also rich in oxygen, which protects and improves watershed ecosystems and marine species. For operators of municipal and industrial facilities switching to ozone lowers operating costs, marrying sustainable treatment and economic benefits.