Sweden's first full-scale treatment unit for pharmaceutical residues found in domestic sewage was inaugurated by the Minister for the Environment, Karolina Skog. The water is purified by means of ozone and the new purification step removes more than 90 percent of the residues in the municipal wastewater coming to the Nykvarnsverket wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Linköping.
The WWTP is owned and operated by the municipality owned energy and waste management company Tekniska Verken i Linköping AB and the inauguration by Minister Skog, held on September 4, marks a new milestone in the EU Baltic Sea Program funded “Clear Waters from Pharmaceuticals” (CWPharma) project.
Tekniska Verkens facility is a showcase that we hope municipalities will be inspired by and replicate. There are provisions in next year’s budget that will enable other municipalities to get part-financing to invest in pharma treatment. I am deeply impressed and I am sure that both national and international delegations will be queuing to see how pharma treatment works here in Linköping, said Minister Skog during her address.
She also revealed that a national knowledge center will be set up next year under the Medical Products Agency (Läkemedelsverket) where knowledge about the effects of medical products on the environment and methods for reducing such emissions should be gathered.
Linköping has long been a leader in several areas linked to the environment, and it can be concluded that if Tekniska Verken had not existed it would probably not have looked like that. The company is in many ways an engine and absolute success factor for Linköping’s environmental work. Food waste becomes biogas for our buses, waste becomes district heating and electricity, and now our dirty wastewater is clean and free from hormone disturbing substances and antibiotics, said Rebecka Hovenberg, Chairman, Tekniska Verken.
The largest amount of pharma residues end up in domestic wastewater system when excreted from the body, not by flushing unused medicines down the toilet.
The substances are often difficult to degrade as they are designed to withstand the acidic environment of the stomach, which also makes it difficult to break these down in the existing process steps at a conventional WWTP.
That we can inaugurate our pharma residue treatment unit today is completely linked to our vision of becoming the world’s most resource-efficient region. This is proof that if you have a vision and follow it, you can achieve remarkable things that benefit animals, nature and people. A big thank you to all the employees who worked so intensively and wholeheartedly with this project, said Anders Jonsson, CEO of Tekniska Verken.
