Recycled Water For Irrigation — Is It Safe?
Do crops grown with recycled water lace our produce with drugs?
"Irrigating crops with recycled water can leave dinner salads laced with small amounts of drugs and personal care chemicals. But researchers disagree on whether the contaminated produce is likely to harm people," Science News reported.
In a new study published in Environmental Science & Technology, researchers investigated this issue.
"Treated wastewater is a valuable water resource, but its reuse for agricultural irrigation faces a roadblock: the public concern over the potential accumulation of contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) into human diet," the study said.
The researchers tested for "19 commonly occurring pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in 8 vegetables irrigated with treated wastewater under field conditions," the study said. "Tertiary treated wastewater without or with a fortification of each PPCP at 250 ng/L, was used to irrigate crops until harvest."
The conclusion? "The researchers found that while the vegetables did accumulate commonly occurring pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs)—including antidepressants, DEET, triclosan and caffeine—they were present only in very small amounts," Smithsonian reported.
As the study put it, "Results from the present study showed that the accumulation of PPCPs in vegetables irrigated with treated wastewater was likely limited under field conditions."
Previous research has also found that recycled water is suitable for irrigation.
In a 2012 study, "researchers in Israel (which uses recycled water to irrigate over half of its crops) found that contrary to assumptions, using recycled wastewater on crops wasn’t spreading antibiotic-resistant bacteria into the environment," Smithsonian reported.
According to the EPA, "to date, scientists have found no evidence of adverse human health effects from pharmaceuticals and personal care products as pollutants (PPCPs) in the environment."
Check out Water Online's Water Reuse Solution Center.
Image credit: "irrigation at dawn," Chris Happel © 2009, used under an Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license:https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/
Copyright © 1996 - 2014, VertMarkets, Inc. All rights reserved. To subscribe or visit go to: http://www.wateronline.com
http://www.wateronline.com/doc/recycled-water-for-irrigation-is-it-safe-0001