Preface
Pharma‐ecology aims at studying and minimizing the impact of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) on the environment. Personal care products broadly include a number of compounds used in our daily lives ranging from soaps, detergents, perfumes, aftershaves, cleaning agents, disinfectants, sprays, deodorants, and similar products. PPCPs are designed to target our individual ailments, a usage that may inadvertently disregard their effects on the ecosystem. Initial interest in these compounds on nontarget organisms in the environment was expressed in 1965 by E. Stumm‐Zollinger and G.M. Fair. However, their concerns about PPCPs went unnoticed until a review by M.I. Richardson and J.M. Bowron was published two decades later. Since then, an exponential number of studies reported the presence of these compounds in the environment, with most reports focusing on the presence of these compounds in various matrices. The first edition published 10 years ago brought some understanding, minimizing the impact of PPCPs on the environment. This edition has incorporated recent advances in this area since the first edition was published. The occurrence and fate of these compounds in the environment is dynamically changing, and the impact of these compounds is undergoing a lot of scrutiny. The second edition updates the readership about this important subject and pursues the continued need to bridge the gap between medicine/public health and environmental science. Each chapter ...