ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY AND POLLUTION PREVENTION Pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs in wastewater samples in north-eastern Tunisia Bilel Moslah 1,2,3 & Evroula Hapeshi 4 & Amel Jrad 1 & Despo Fatta-Kassinos 5,4 & Abderrazek Hedhili 2,3 Received: 30 December 2016 /Accepted: 20 March 2017 /Published online: 7 April 2017 # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2017 Abstract Pharmaceutically active substances (PhACs) and drugs of abuse (DAs) are two classes of contaminants of emerging concern that have attracted great concern and interest by the scientific community during the last two decades. Numerous studies have revealed their presence in treated urban wastewaters. This is mainly due to the fact that some compounds are not efficiently removed during wastewater treatment processes, and are thus able to reach the aquatic environment through wastewater dis- charge and reuse practices. The application of an opti- mized multi-residue method for the simultaneous confir- mation and quantification of licit and illicit drugs has been investigated in influent and effluent wastewater sam- ples from seven wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) located in north-eastern Tunisia. Analysis was performed through ultra-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS). Out of 12 pharma- ceutical compounds analyzed, 11 of them were detected mainly in effluent wastewaters. In both matrices, antibiotics and β-blockers were the most detected groups. This suggests that these compounds show noticeable re- sistance against biological treatment in WWTPs. The es- timated concentrations of antibiotics in effluents ranged from ca. 35 ng/L to 1.2 μg/L. However, all five studied illicit drugs were detected, mainly in influent wastewaters. Forensic investigation performed on people suspected to be drug abusers covering all Tunisian cities was conduct- ed by monitoring an epidemiological study of human urine samples surveying rate of consumption for illicit drugs. Hence, these preliminary results confirmed the presence of illicit drugs in the influent wastewater sam- ples. For example, quantification ranges for cocaine were found to be 25–450 ng/L in influent wastewater samples. Significant differences for cocaine consumption across the two sampling methods were observed. Consequently, we conclude that the analyses in wastewater are more reflec- tive of the real levels of illicit drug consumption. Moreover, the cost for chromatographic analysis is lower than the screening test methods for human biological specimen, particularly staffing, which are likely to be much lower. Keywords Pharmaceuticals . Illicit drugs . Tunisia . Urine . Wastewater . Xenobiotics Introduction The urban wastewater treatment plants are a major source of release of contaminants of emerging concern in the environment. Over the last decade, there is an increasing- ly growing attention towards the contamination in waters by licit and illicit drugs (Petrovi ć et al. 2009). Most existing conventional biological treatment processes Responsible editor: Ester Heath * Bilel Moslah bilel.moslah@gmail.com 1 Tunis International Center for Environmental Technologies CITET, Boulevard Leader Yassar Arafat, 1080 Tunis, Tunisia 2 Faculty of pharmacy, 5000 Monastir, Tunisia 3 Department of Toxicology, Laboratory of Environment and Toxicology LR12SP07, Urgent Medical Assistance Center (CAMU), 1089 Tunis, Tunisia 4 Nireas-International Water Research Center, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus 5 Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nicosia, Cyprus Environ Sci Pollut Res (2018) 25:18226–18241 DOI 10.1007/s11356-017-8902-z