Banned Pesticides Found At ‘Worrying Levels’ In English Rivers

It isn’t only pesticides that are being found in rivers across the world. A disturbing analysis published in 2022 revealed that over 40 percent of the world’s rivers may now contain harmful levels of pollution from pharmaceutical drugs. Published in the Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry journal, the study found that around 461 of 1,052 sites monitored across 104 countries had drug concentrations considered to be of concern. Concluding that pharmaceutical pollution is a global problem, the researchers say that work is urgently needed to reduce concentrations in rivers down to acceptable levels.

While this issue remains largely ignored in the mainstream media, the reality is that pharmaceutical companies have been polluting the environment for decades now. As a result, even drinking water supplies have become contaminated with measurable amounts of dangerous chemical drugs. Rarely admitted by public health authorities, the fact is that water treatment plants were never designed to deal with the presence of toxic pharmaceutical compounds.

To learn more about the ways in which drug industry pollution is affecting food chains, water supplies, and the environment, see this article on our website.