From 16th to 18th April 2018, the MORPHEUS project partners met in Essen, Germany. At the meeting, the partners exchanged views on the current state of project activities and discussed initial results.
Water samples from local wastewater treatment plants as well as in rivers in Sweden, Germany, Poland and Lithuania were analysed for selected pharmaceuticals in order to estimate the concentration of trace substances in the southern Baltic Sea region. These results, in combination with data on regional prescriptions and sales volumes of drugs, should serve to understand the specific pathways and quantities of pharmaceutical trace substances and to derive appropriate measures for their reduction. This information together with an assessment of available micropollutant retention technologies will assist wastewater treatment plants operators and authorities with regard to future implementations of appropriate purification technologies.
As part of the project meeting, the participants visited wastewater treatment plants in Dülmen and Bad Sassendorf and learned more about the use of activated carbon powder and ozone as the 4th cleaning step.
