Presence of drugs in the environment

The first reports on pharmaceuticals in wastewater and surface water were published in the USA in the 1970s. Initially, pharmaceuticals as environmental contaminants received little attention until the link between the pharmaceutical ethinylestradiol and its effects on fish was made [15] .

Since then, a great deal of scientific attention has been devoted to the presence of pharmaceuticals in the environment. This has resulted in a growing number of reports confirming the presence of pharmaceuticals in a variety of environmental samples, e.g. wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent, surface water, groundwater [6][12][16][17]