Assessing City-Wide Pharmaceutical Emissions to Wastewater via Modelling and Passive Sampling
Open accessAbstract
With increasing numbers of chemicals used in modern society, assessing human and environmental exposure to them is becoming increasingly difficult. Recent advances in wastewater-based epidemiology enable valuable insights into public exposure to data-poor compounds. However, measuring all >26,000 chemicals registered under REACH is not just technically unfeasible but would also be incredibly expensive. In this paper, we argue that estimating emissions of chemicals based on usage data could offer a more comprehensive, systematic and efficient approach than repeated monitoring. Emissions of 29 active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) to wastewater were estimated for a medium-sized city in the Netherlands. Usage data was collected both on national and local scale and included prescription data, usage in health-care institutions and over-the-counter sales. Different routes of administration were considered as well as the excretion and subsequent in-sewer back-transformation of conjugates into respective parent compounds. Results suggest model-based emission estimation on a city-level is feasible and in good agreement with wastewater measurements obtained via passive sampling. Results highlight the need to include excretion fractions in the conceptual framework of emission estimation but suggest that the choice of an appropriate excretion fraction has a substantial impact on the resulting model performance.
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The observed relative contribution of trimethoprim appears consistent with the excretion fractions reported in recent environmental studies.
“the relative contribution of trimethoprim that we found appears consistent with the excretion fractions reported in recent environmental studies [2,36].”
From Pharmacometabolomics Study of Sulfamethoxazole and Trimethoprim in Kidney Transplant Recipients: Real-World Metabolism and Urinary Excretion (2025) · cites this paper as [2]
Section 2.4 says the study used literature-based excretion fractions to estimate pharmaceutical emissions, and Section 3.1 reports that trimethoprim’s estimated emissions agreed well with wastewater measurements. The copy does not give a trimethoprim-specific excretion fraction or compare it with the citing authors’ observed relative contribution, so that comparison is not directly supported. (LLM, conf=0.72)
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Research works printed but not linked: 1
- European Commission, 2022. Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2022/1307 of 22 July 2022 establishing a watch list of substances for Union-wide monitoring in the field of water policy pursuant to Directive 2008/105/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (notified under). Official Journal.
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“These drugs mostly enter the sewage system upon excretion by humans via urine and feces and the subsequent flushing of these excrements down the toilet [2].”
Influential
- Authors
- Zillien, C., Groenveld, T., Schut, O., Beeltje, H., Blanco-Ania, D., Posthuma, L., Roex, E., & Ragas, A.
- Affiliations
- Radboud University Nijmegen (NL)
- Open University of the Netherlands (NL)
- Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (NL)
- National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Zillien, Caterina
- Venue
- Environment International
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2024-03
- Volume
- 185
- Pages
- 108524
- ISSN
- 0160-4120 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4392094141
- Cited by
- 13
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4
- FWCI
- 1.29
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Environment International (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- TNO Repository (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Radboud Repository (Radboud University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Rivm Repository (Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) (submittedVersion)
- Rivm (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Dutch Research Council
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Pollution › Pharmaceutical and Antibiotic Environmental Impacts
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Effects and risks of endocrine disrupting chemicals
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Urban Stormwater Management Solutions
- Keywords
- wastewater, active pharmaceutical ingredients, emission estimation, wastewater-based epidemiology, passive sampling, usage data, route of administration, human exposure
- MeSH terms
- Wastewater-Based Epidemiological Monitoring, Pharmaceutical Preparations, Environmental Exposure, Environmental Monitoring, Humans, Water Pollutants, Chemical, Wastewater
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