Emerging pollutants: definition, examples and how they affect us

Emerging pollutants are all those pollutants whose presence in the environment has been recently recognized , due to the existing concern about the consequences they entail given their polluting effect on the environment and on health. As its name suggests, these pollutants have emerged today, that is, they have been recently detected thanks to the application of new analytical technologies available for study and recognition. Despite having been used continuously and for a long time, until the last 5 or 7 years the effects they can cause both on the environment and on people were not known.

Emerging pollutants are increasingly present in the environment, as a direct consequence of irresponsible activities by human beings, such as poor management of toxic waste and excess consumption of certain chemicals. In the next section we will see some concrete examples of emerging pollutants to better understand what it consists of.

In the vast majority of cases, emerging pollutants appear in wastewater , rivers and aquifers, the main sources of emission being agriculture and livestock, as well as poor management of toxic waste. Let’s see the main examples or types of emerging pollutants detected today:

• Medications in pill form, such as ibuprofen, which when expired are improperly disposed of by toilets and sinks or in normal trash, instead of being taken to clean drug collection points in pharmacies, which is the right thing to do for its good management.
• Pharmaceutical products with cutaneous application, such as creams, ointments and lotions, which deposit remains as they are not completely absorbed by the skin, contaminating surface waters.
• Personal care and hygiene products, such as makeup and some soaps.
• Perfluorinated compounds derived from pesticides, fungicides, plant growth accelerators and other products used in agriculture.
• Silver, gold and metal oxide nanoparticles from industrial activities.
• Drugs like cocaine and heroin.
• Endocrine or hormonal disruptors. Learn more about these types of emerging pollutants that affect our hormones with this other post on What are endocrine disruptors .
• Plasticizers and industrial additives.
• Microplastics. If you want to know better about these plastic pollutants, you can consult this other Green Ecology article on What are microplastics, their definition and types .

After not being able to be eliminated in the treatment plants in which the treatment of the residual waters to which the emerging pollutants reach are carried out, these tend to accumulate in natural aquatic environments, thus causing negative effects on the well-being and balance of ecosystems and species that inhabit it.

It is known that they affect health in different ways (especially by favoring hormonal problems, as in the case of endocrine disruptors) and unbalance ecosystems , destroying habitats, among other problems. However, the environmental information regarding the effects of emerging pollutants on human health, biodiversity and the environment is not yet very extensive to be able to specify the negative effects of these pollutants further. Therefore, it is essential to invest in more studies and research that reveal the specific effects of emerging pollutants, both nationally and internationally.

The possible effects, both in the short and long term, of the accumulation of emerging pollutants in natural and artificial aquatic ecosystems is a problem that must be controlled by governments and societies, since the responsibility of managing our waste concerns us all.

If you want to read more articles similar to Emerging pollutants: definition, examples and how they affect us , we recommend that you enter our Pollution category .