Water UK, the body which represents UK water companies at national and international level, has reaffirmed its view that it is currently not practical to set any formal statutory standards for pharmaceutical residues in water.

According to Water UK, the European Commission is beginning to develop a strategic approach to dealing with pollution of water by pharmaceuticals.  However, the organisation reiterated its view recently set out in a position paper that more research is needed to establish a more robust scientific evidence base.

Currently no standards exist to regulate the levels of pharmaceutical substances present in environmental water sources or in drinking water. The policy paper points out that whilst this means that there is no statutory duty to monitor tap water for these substances, water companies do carry out investigations where risk assessments indicate there could be a problem.

The pollution of water and soil with pharmaceutical residues is an emerging environmental concern. In August 2013, in the framework of the adoption of Directive 2013/39/EU with regard to priority substances in the field of water policy, the Commission was asked to develop a strategic approach to pollution of water by pharmaceutical substances by the end of 2015.

A study carried out by BIO Intelligence Service on the risks of environmental effects of medicinal products, together with other relevant studies and reports, will provide the basis to develop the strategic approach.

Separate research published earlier this year led by Egina Malaj at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ in Leipzig, Germany has provided evidence that chemicals threaten the ecological integrity and consequently the biodiversity of almost half of the water bodies on a continental scale, based on the analysis of governmental monitoring data from 4,000 European sites.

Click here to read Water UK’s position paper.

Click here to read the BIO Intelligence Service study