Personal care

Consumer goods that are used for personal hygiene, personal grooming, or for the sake of beauty are referred to as personal care or toiletries.

At the very least since the 1990s, researchers have been looking into the impact that pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) have on the natural environment. PPCPs encompass both the compounds that people use for their own personal health or for cosmetic purposes and the items that are utilised by the agricultural industry to promote the growth or health of animals. Each year, more than twenty million metric tonnes of PPCPs are put into production. The pharmaceutical residues that have the potential to contaminate water and soil have been labelled as "priority substances" by the European Union.

PPCPs have been found in water bodies all around the globe. The current state of research indicates that personal care products have an impact over the environment and other species, such as coral reefs and fish. Although additional research is required to evaluate the risks of toxicity, persistence, and bioaccumulation, the current state of research shows that personal care products have an impact over the environment. Persistent pharmaceutical compounds and pollutants (PPCPs) are a subset of environmental persistent pharmaceutical pollutants (EPPPs) that fall under the category of persistent organic pollutants. They need a fourth treatment step, which is something that not very many facilities have, therefore standard sewage treatment plants are not equipped to remove them.

The most exhaustive research ever conducted on the topic of pharmaceutical contamination of the world's rivers is scheduled to be completed in 2022. The study will find that the pollution poses a risk to "environmental and/or human health in more than a quarter of the analysed regions." It evaluated 1,052 sample locations along 258 rivers in 104 different nations, which represented the river pollution of 470 million people. The report also includes a list of the pharmaceuticals that were found the most frequently and in the highest concentrations.