More than 520 chemicals have been found in English soils, including pharmaceutical products and toxins that were banned decades ago, because of the practice of spreading human waste to fertilise arable land.
Research by scientists at the University of Leeds, published as a preprint in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, found a worrying array of chemicals in English soils. Close to half (46.4%) of the pharmaceutical substances detected had not been reported in previous global monitoring campaigns.
