Pine bark removes pharmaceutical residues from wastewater—an affordable way to keep antibiotics out of nature

Researchers at the University of Oulu, Finland, have developed a pine-bark–based water-treatment medium that efficiently removes antibiotics as well as residues of blood-pressure and antidepressant medicines from wastewater treatment plant effluent. A new doctoral thesis reports promising results with a simple and low-cost method in which pine bark was modified with iron.