Coffee Habits May Indicate Sanitary Contamination

Who would have thought that your coffee consumption habits may be used as a proxy for detecting potential sanitary contamination situations in lakes and rivers? Yet, this is precisely what investigators at the University of Montreal, in Canada, discovered in a new study.

The team says that about 3 percent of the caffeine consumed in cities makes its way into the sewer system. Given that human consumption is the only source of caffeine, finding the chemical in lakes or rivers could indicate both sewer leaks and overflows, LiveScience reports.

Caffeine comes from coffee, chocolate, tea and energy drinks, among other products. If it is found carrying fecal coliform bacteria, then scientists know that the contamination came from humans and not animals living by the rivers.

“If fecal coliforms come from human sewage, they will come with caffeine. So if we find caffeine, that means it came from sanitary contamination,” UM study researcher and environmental chemist Sébastien Sauvé explains.