CHAPTER 6 Emerging contaminants and ways to reduce it Rifat Ara Masud, Aqib Adnan Shafin, Md. Mehedi Hasan Babu and Md. Kamruzzaman Department of Applied Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Gopalganj, Bangladesh 6.1 Introduction Water on earth should remain pure or contaminants-free for our better living in this world. Emerging contaminants (ECs) are comparatively a newer type of micropollutants that have become a concern nowadays because of their harmful impact on human health and biota. The US Geological Survey (2015) defined ECs as “any synthetic or naturally occurring chemicals or microorganisms that are not commonly monitored in the environ- ment and cause known or suspected adverse ecological and/or human health effects” (Philip et al., 2018). The major three sources are daily products usage of human, medicines used by human or animal, pesticides from agricultural purposes. Pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), personal care products (PCPs), endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), artificial sweeteners (ASWs), etc., are found in the water bodies for the last several years and are collectively defined as ECs because there are not much clear data available for these compounds. ECs are new contaminants so they are not monitored properly, due to the lack of monitoring, these enter the aquatic environment from industrial effluent, municipal wastewater, hospital runoff, and wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). The con- centration of ECs depends on various conditions such as usage pattern, per capita water consumption, population density, land use, sewer conditions, and environmental persis- tent. It is found that the concentration of ECs is not much in the aquatic environment, but if the exposure is for long time, then it may cause bad impact on ecosystem as well as health effect of human too (Parida et al., 2021). So the water containing ECs should be trea- ted properly before releasing in the environment. As there are not much statistical data 91 Environmental Approach to Remediate Refractory Pollutants fromIndustrial Wastewater Treatment Plant DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-443-13884-3.00021-4 © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.