Emerging Environmental Contaminants

Emerging environmental contaminants (EECs) are ubiquitous, arise from different types of sources such as industrial wastes, municipal wastewater, pharmaceuticals, agricultural practices and many more humanactivities. Emerging pollutants like pesticides and herbicides, non-halogenated compounds, phthalates, additives to plastics, pharmaceuticals, personal care, etc. are described in detail. Nowadays, we are more technologically advanced with scientific knowledge and socio-economic awareness, and people are more concernedaboutkeeping their surrounding environment clean and green. Various ongoing researches have focused on the EECs removal or degradation by physical, chemical, and biological methods, but they remain in the environment. In the research data available from previous studies, the nature, behavior, threats of EECs to the ecosystem, and implications on human health is still not comprehensive. In this chapter, we have made an effort to highlight the state-of-art of EECs, to get an idea of the sources, adverse impact on living beings in the ecosystem, and future challenges of EECs.