So Many Artificial Sweeteners In Grand River (Ontario) They're Used To Track Treated Waste Flows

[hatrack]

EDIT

As part of a long-term study, scientists with Environment Canada and the University of Waterloo repeatedly sampled 23 sites along the Grand River system as well as household taps.

Four artificial sweeteners – acesulfame, saccharin, cyclamate and sucralose – were detected, in some cases at higher concentrations than reported anywhere else in the world.

At one site, the researcher calculated that the equivalent of 90,000 to 190,000 cans of diet soda were being consumed each day to account for the quantity of acesulfame they measured.

“If you think about all those cans of pop floating down the river, it’s quite an image,” said Sherry Schiff, a biogeochemist at the University of Waterloo and a co-author of the study, published Wednesday in the open access journal PLOS ONE.

EDIT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ontarios-grand-river-loaded-with-artificial-sweeteners-study-finds/article15896336/

[phantom power]

1. We can always hope that the plasmids for digesting artificial sweeteners...

are somehow antagonistic with the plasmids for antibiotic resistance.