Exploring eco-friendly approaches for mitigating pharmaceutical and personal care products in aquatic ecosystems: A sustainability assessment

Global water scarcity is exacerbated by climate change, population growth, and water pollution. Over half of the world's population will be affected by water shortages for at least a month annually by 2050 due toa lack of clean water sources. Even though recycling wastewater helps meet the growing demand, new pollutants, including pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), pose a health threat since conventional methods cannot remove them and their environmental monitoring regulations are yet in place. Therefore, the current review aims to investigate and propose eco-friendly technologies for removing PPCPs from wastewater and their imple-mentation strategies for ecosystem safety. Findings indicated the absence of a single wastewater treatment technology that can remove all PPCPs in a single operation. Instead, biotechnological methods are one of the alternatives that can remove PPCPs from aquatic environments. In this context, community involvement and knowledge transfer are identified keys to clean water resources' long-term sustainability.

Automated summary

Global water scarcity is worsening due to climate change, population growth, and water pollution, leading to over half of the world's population facing annual water shortages by 2050. Despite wastewater recycling to meet demand, the presence of new pollutants like PPCPs poses a health risk as conventional methods fail to remove them, and regulations for environmental monitoring are inadequate. Therefore, this review explores eco-friendly technologies and implementation strategies for removing PPCPs from wastewater, highlighting the importance of biotechnological methods and community involvement for long-term sustainability of clean water resources.