Impacts of pharmaceutical and personal care products contamination as emerging contaminants in urban ecosystem: emerging risks and future challenges

Abstract The rising contamination of pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in urban water bodies is causing severe environmental and public health concerns, especially due to the rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). The study highlights the prevalence of four PPCPs: paracetamol, gentamicin, naproxen and metronidazole across 11 water samples collected from sewage treatment plants and water bodies of Mysuru city. Maximum concentrations were observed for Naproxen (8.517 µg/L) at site 1. Ecotoxicological risk were observed for four drugs: high risk for gentamicin, low/medium for paracetamol, for naproxen RQ > 1, while metronidazole was RQ < 0.1. AMR was contributed with a high risk for metronidazole and gentamicin in all the samples. The geographical variation in the results indicates that the contamination levels are highly affected by untreated pharmaceutical waste and hospital effluents.