Industrial wastewater is a pressing issue due to significant water and chemical usage in production, leading to the discharge of harmful micropollutants, toxins, and lethal substances into the environment without proper treatment. Employing eco-friendly biological treatment systems involving microorganisms like bacteria, fungi, and enzymes is crucial for detoxifying such contaminated water. Hence, urgent measures are needed to develop sustainable methods for treating emerging pollutants in wastewater to safeguard the environment. The toxicity of emerging pollutants poses a global environmental concern, including rare Earth elements, micro/nano plastics, antibiotics, and pharmaceuticals. Inadequate treatment systems discharge many of these hazardous compounds, challenging their detection due to their adverse effects even at low concentrations. Nano/micro-scale physical pollutants add complexity, while the fate, transport, and toxicity of these contaminants remain unclear. Understanding their behaviours and advancing remediation techniques is critical to mitigating the ecosystem exposure risks.

In this review, we present the environmental perspectives of the viruses and antiviral drugs related to SARS-CoV-2. The present review paper discusses occurrence, fate, transport, susceptibility, and inactivation mechanisms of viruses in the environment as well as environmental occurrence and fate of antiviral drugs, and prospects (prevalence and occurrence) of antiviral drug resistance (both antiviral drug resistant viruses and antiviral resistance in the human). During winter, the number of viral disease cases and environmental occurrence of antiviral drug surge due to various biotic and abiotic factors such as transmission pathways, human behaviour, susceptibility, and immunity as well as cold climatic conditions. Adsorption and persistence critically determine the fate and transport of viruses in the environment. Inactivation and disinfection of virus include UV, alcohol, and other chemical-base methods but the susceptibility of virus against these methods varies. Wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are major reserviors of antiviral drugs and their metabolites and transformation products. Ecotoxicity of antiviral drug residues against aquatic organisms have been reported, however more threatening is the development of antiviral resistance, both in humans and in wild animal reservoirs. In particular, emergence of antiviral drug-resistant viruses via exposure of wild animals to high loads of antiviral residues during the current pandemic needs further evaluation.

Arsenic (As) is a highly toxic element which naturally occurs in drinking water. In spite of substantial evidence on the association between many illnesses and chronic consumption of As, there is still a considerable uncertainty about the health risks due to low As concentrations in drinking water. In the Netherlands, drinking water companies aim to supply water with As concentration of <1 μg/L – a water quality goal which is tenfold more stringent than the current WHO guideline. This paper provides (i) an account on the assessed lung cancer risk for the Dutch population due to pertinent low-level As in drinking water and cost-comparison between health care provision and As removal from water, (ii) an overview of As occurrence and mobility in drinking water sources and water treatment systems in the Netherlands and (iii) insights into As removal methods that have been employed or under investigation to achieve As reduction to <1 µg/L at Dutch water treatment plants. Lowering of the average As concentration to <1μg/L in the Netherlands is shown to result in an annual benefit of 7.2–14 M€. This study has a global significance for setting drinking water As limits and provision of safe drinking water.

This study aimed to evaluate the potential of handpump tubewell platform color as a low-cost, quick and convenient screening tool for As and Mn in drinking water tubewells. For this study, groundwater samples and corresponding tubewell platform pictures were collected from 272 shallow tubewells in Matlab Upazila of South-Eastern Bangladesh. The result shows that arsenic concentration within the surveyed (n = 272) tubewells, 99% (n = 269) exceeded the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline value of 10 µg/L, and 98% (n = 267) exceeded the Bangladesh drinking water standards (BDWS) of 50 µg/L. In relation to the platform color concept, within 233 (total 272) red colored platform tubewells, 230 (99%) exceeded the WHO guideline value of 10 µg/L, and 229 (98%) tubewells exceeded BDWS of 50 µg/L. This result shows a strong correlation between the development of red color stain on tubewell platform and As concentrations in the corresponding tubewell water. This study suggests that red-colored platform can be used for primary identification of tubewells with an elevated level of As and thus could prioritize sustainable As mitigation management in developing countries where water comes from reductive shallow aquifers. This study did not confirm the potential for Mn screening, as red discoloration by Fe oxides was found to mask the black discoloration of Mn oxides. It is recommended to further investigate this screening tool in regions with a higher well-to-well variability of As contaminations, as in the presented study As was found >10ug/L in 99% of the tubewells.