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Hey, listeners, it's Lindsay Smith-Roggers. Today, pharmaceuticals and other chemicals in our wastewater.

Karsten Prasay, a Johns Hopkins Environmental Science researcher,

talks to Stephanie Desmond about his work looking at innovative ways

to keep as much of these compounds as possible from reaching our drinking water

and the fertilizer that feeds our crops.

One idea?

Using common mushrooms to degrade the drugs before they can reenter

our food and water supplies. Let's listen. Karsten Pras, I thank so much for joining me. Thank you for

having me today. So I wanted to know this. What happens to the medications we take and the products

we use after they go down the drain. Most of us assume

they just disappear, but they don't, and trace chemicals can make their way through wastewater

systems and back into the environment. Today, I want to talk to you about an unexpected

solution that you found in your research. Today, we're talking about how fungi can help

remove things like pharmaceuticals and personal care products from wastewater. Why does this matter? It matters because if these things aren't removed

from our wastewater, then we are potentially exposed to them. So, for example, through drinking

water or potentially also food that is grown using wastewater. Medications like antidepressants and beauty products, they don't fully break down.

And so some of it ends up in these water systems.

Can you quickly walk through an overview of how wastewater too it works and where it falls short?

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