Researchers from the University of Kristianstad are testing the idea of using chicken manure as a filter to clean wastewater from pharmaceutical residues at municipal sewage treatment plants in two municipalities in south Sweden.
Swedish sewage treatment plants are not built to treat pharmaceutical residues from wastewater, leaving large amounts of pharmaceuticals flowing straight into our waterways. With a number of pollutants that accompany wastewater into the marine environment, this is rather worrying. Oestrogen can inhibit the reproduction of fish and antidepressant drugs can make fish greedier, braver and less social.
Two researchers at the University of Kristianstad have set out to test their idea of using chicken manure as a filter at municipal sewage treatment plants in Osby and Bromley municipality, located in Skåne County, south Sweden. As an example the researchers points out that each year approximately one tonne of the substance diclofenac (found in commonly used drugs Voltaren and Arthrotec) is consumed in the Skåne County alone. Nearly 70 percent of this enters wastewater treatment plants, with a large part of this going unfiltered out into the environment. It is suspected that pharmaceutical residues may be one of the causes behind the bad situation seen in Hanöbukten, not far from the two test sewage treatment plants.
The researchers have It has built a box of 2 x 2 meters large, where the wastewater gets purified by the filter, currently filled with activated carbon. Their idea is to replace the activated charcoal as it is expensive and not renewable with chicken manure which when heated up becomes something called biochar. When chicken manure is heated a rest product is created that looks like black powder, somewhat similar to coal. The “black powder” is later treated in a number of ways which allows it to capture a broad spectrum of pharmaceutical subjects. Biochar has proved to be almost as successful as activated carbon when treating wastewater from hormone-disrupting agents.
We are very eager to hear more about how this project progresses, as hormone-disrupting agents is not only a problem along the Swedish coast but also within the Baltic Sea and other water bodies.