Emissions of pharmaceutical residues into the aquatic environment from the catchment area of the Baltic Sea region are a topic of growing interest. Therefore, the project CWPharma was funded by the European Union within the INTERREG 2 program (Baltic Sea region), in order to support politics, administrations, and municipalities tackling this issue by providing decision-making tools and recommendations.

Besides an intensive monitoring to identify relevant pharmaceutical compounds and their entry paths, technical and non-technical measures will be evaluated in order to reduce the overall emission of these substances. In total, 15 partners as well as 18 associated organizations from seven Baltic States including Belarus are involved in this project, which is coordinated by the “Finnish Environment Institute” (SYKE).

KWB leads work package 3 “advanced wastewater treatment”, in which technical solutions such as ozonation and activated carbon are evaluated and compared in pilot studies at waste water treatment plants in Kalundborg (DK), Linköping (SE), Helsinki (FI), and Berlin (DE). Together with the partner Berliner Wasserbetriebe, experiences with the ozonation of secondary effluent in Berlin will be collected and transferred to the project consortium.

• Official Project Website of CWPharma

• Website Interreg Baltic Sea

• Website of Gemeinsame Landesplanung Berlin-Brandenburg   (in German only)