Grant: Canada Research Chairs

We will determine how toxic chemicals, both past-use but especially current-use, are released into the environment, behave once there, and move and degrade, if they do. Understanding how these processes work is essential to characterizing concentrations, and therefore exposure levels, of such chemicals to humans and other living organisms. This work will include research on understanding how new and better passive samplers can collect pharmaceuticals, personal care products, pesticides, and their various degradation products in waters, soils, and sewage. This would better characterize release levels of such chemicals, and identify (nontoxic) tracers of waste inputs that we can use to predict contamination levels in our lakes and rivers, which we can test using special field-scale facilities in a safe manner. We will also determine if drug degradation products may be a reservoir of such chemicals in the aquatic environment, as they turn back into their original forms, or may themselves be harmful. This research will lead to sound decision-making for sustainable environmental protection.