CHENNAI, 7th October 2021: Indian Institute of Technology Madras Researchers have found that the waters of River Cauvery are polluted by a range of emerging contaminants that include pharmaceutically-active compounds, personal care products, plastics, flame retardants, heavy metals, and pesticides, among many others.

Of these, pharmaceutical contamination is particularly serious in India, which is the second-largest pharmaceutical manufacturing country in the world. These drug compounds, when released even in minuscule amounts into water bodies, can harm human beings and the ecosystem in the long run.