The main source of pharmaceuticals and their metabolites, but also drugs, viruses and pathogens are usually waste waters. Waste water treatment plants (WWTP) have a limited ability to remove these substances, which consequently leads to their appearance in the environment. This review describes the reasons of WWTP's limited effectiveness, behaviour of pharmaceuticals and drugs in WWTP and also summarizes alternative biological, chemical and physico-chemical procedures and their modifications, able to effectively clean and disinfect waste waters. The paper also focuses on the virus issues which often occur in waste water, and describes how to eliminate them. Within the scientific community, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is currently being intensively studied due to the ongoing pandemic but the behaviour of the viruses and their inactivation in waste waters is still examined inadequately.

The presence of pharmaceuticals, drugs and their metabolites in the environment grows and represents an actual environmental problem, there is an increasing trend to involve new environmental technologies. We can therefore observe an increasing trend to involve new environmental technologies. Membrane technologies, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs), and their various modifications are the most frequently studied advanced technologies. There is also an effort to develop new types of drugs that are biodegradable in sewage disposal plants. The adverse effects of drugs in the environment are already reflected in the European Union legislation. Active substances, such as diclofenac, 17-α-ethinylestradiol and 17-β-estradiol, estrone, erythromycin, clarithromycin and azithromycin, are included in the list of followed compounds in the water management monitoring. This screening was set up by the European Commission in 2015 to monitor and evaluate the risks posed by these compounds.