Drugs down the drain: Impacts of pharmaceuticals in the natural environment

Thursday 22 March 2012, 7.00PM

Speaker: Professor Alistair Boxall, Environment Department

Merchant Adventurers' Science Discovery Lecture

We will probably all use pharmaceuticals at some stage in our life. Following use, pharmaceuticals are excreted into the sewage system and can then pass through sewage treatment plants into surface waters. As pharmaceuticals are biologically active molecules, in recent years there has been increasing interest from scientists and the general public over the potential impacts of pharmaceuticals on aquatic organisms and on humans that consume drinking water containing pharmaceuticals. In this talk, I will explain how pharmaceuticals move from humans to surface waters and drinking water supplies and discuss the implications of presence of pharmaceuticals in water bodies for ecological and human health. Solutions to minimise the impacts of pharmaceuticals on the environment will also be presented. 

Alistair is Professor in Environmental Science in the Environment Department at York.  Alistair’s research focuses on understanding emerging and future ecological and health risks posed by chemical contaminants in the natural environment. Alistair is a member of the Defra Advisory Committee on Hazardous Substances and regularly advises national and international organisations on issues relating to chemical impacts on the environment. During this talk, Alistair will describe work that has been done in recent years at York and elsewhere to understand how medicines reach the environment and the implications of the presence of medicines in rivers and soils for ecological and human health. Towards the end of the presentation, Alistair will describe things that we can do as individuals to minimise the release of these substances to the natural environment.

Admission: Admission by free ticket only, available from www.york.ac.uk/tickets.

Location: Merchant Adventurers' Hall, Fossgate, York