At the end of 2020, the AdMaS Center, together with its partners, launched a solution for the project “For Healthier and Better Water in Brno”, which was commissioned by the City of Brno. The aim of the project is to gain current knowledge about the quality of drinking and wastewater in Brno with a focus on micropollutants such as medicaments, drugs, pesticides, microplastics, etc.

During December 2020, weekly monitoring of wastewater flowing into the Brno-Modřice Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) took place, which treats this wastewater from the territory of the city of Brno and its vicinity. This initial weekly “screening” provided insight into the amount and species composition of infiltrated micropollution, which was evaluated during January 2021.

The average daily value of micropollution flowing into the Brno-Modřice WWTP consists in total of: about 20 kg of medicaments (the main pharmaceutical substances were paracetamol, iomeprol and gabapentin), 0.5 kg of drugs (pervitin and THC metabolite), 1 kg of pesticides and 0.07 kg of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls. In terms of widely discussed microplastics (plastic parts smaller than 0.5 mm), their occurrence was monitored on average 267 particles per liter of wastewater

The project will now continue as long-term annual sampling campaign of quality of drinking water from the city of Brno water sources for the, wastewater sampling at the inflow and outflow of the Brno-Modřice WWTP to evaluate the effectiveness of micro-pollution removal at the treatment plant and wastewater monitoring on the sewer network busy roads.