According to the Brabant water board De Bommel, Dutch festival organizers should remove traces of drugs from wastewater before it is pumped into the sewerage system.
Removing traces of ecstasy, cocaine and other substances from the water is expensive and festivals should pay the bill themselves, says head of the water board Bas Peeters in the Eindhovens Dagblad. “You can't explain it to the taxpayers.”
Drug waste in water
Not all waste can be filtered out. Some ends up in lakes and rivers, which is bad for fish and plants, according to Peeters. Water treatment plants were originally designed to remove organic material from wastewater, but are increasingly confronted with chemicals, including trace amounts of medicines, microplastics and drugs.
Companies can be required to clean the water they use. Hospitals already have agreements about the disposal of pharmaceutical waste. Including festivals in the system is a logical next step.
Testing on wastewater is one of the ways in which drug experts assess and map the use of narcotics in the Netherlands. The spread of the coronavirus is also currently being monitored via wastewater samples.
Source: dutchnews.nl (EN)
