Wastewater is helping us track disease outbreaks. Could it predict a future pandemic?

When you wash your dishes, take a shower, or flush a toilet you send a bunch of waste into your local sewer. But wastewater isn’t just filled with things like food scraps, soap, and feces—it also contains microbes, like viruses. During the pandemic, scientists realized how powerful a tool wastewater is for tracking many diseases, including COVID-19. Links to the Tiny Show & Tell stories here and here. Episode transcripts at acs.org/tinymatters