a shared vision on the management of micro-pollution
Putting an end to micro-pollution will be achieved in the near future if:
contamination of one environmental compartment - water or soil - is seen and treated as an integral part of the contamination of an entire ecological system that consists of soil, water, air, and its respective micro- and macro-organisms as a whole;
care for the quality of the meso-system water, includes surface water, ground water, rain water and tap water;
care for the quality of this meso-system is not an exclusive responsibility of the water sector anymore. As water is a common good, also the protection of water quality will be a common responsibility. For this reason not one sector of society is excluded from the care for water quality. The same applies to the management of soil and air quality;
for a realistic assessment of the exposure to anthropogenic molecules like pharmaceuticals, a total risk assessment is applied. This underlines the urgency of the issue and the importance of every individual contaminant, compartment or exposure route. Therefor, a total risk assessment stimulates the creation of a more integrated policy than the former molecule-by-molecule based policy. And the chances that (appropriate) measures will be taken are greater;
assessments of (and policies on) chemical micro-pollution are combined with assessments of (and policies on) biological pollution, e.g. the formation and spreading of resistant organisms and genes. This integration of different classes of contaminants gives the issue more significance;
to achieve an integrated approach, strategies for water, soil, air or food quality are developed by different sectors (health, agriculture, environment, economy) in close cooperation;
an integrated solution is the result of an effort by the whole product chain. For example, pharmaceutical contamination will be managed if the whole human and veterinary medicine chain is involved and a package of complementary measures is implemented. The integrated approach requires intensive and continuous communication and cooperation within the product chain.
cooperation results in and builds on one common vision: green pharmacy as a part of green chemistry; and green chemistry as a part of a circular economy.