photo credit: Deco Fernandes
We use medicine often and for a number of ailments but do we ever wonder what happens to all these pills once we throw them away? Well, unfortunately, they mostly end up in the water waste being flushed down the toilet or in the landfills slowly leaking into the ground. The problem is that just because the medicine may have reached its expiration date, it doesn’t mean the active ingredients in them stop working instantly.
An Associated Press analysis has recently found 56 pharmaceuticals in the drinking water in many of American metropolitan areas. Some of the drugs found in the drinking water supplied to 41 million people include pain killers, medicines for asthma, epilepsy, high cholesterol, heart conditions, infections and mental illness.
The issue is far more complex than that. Not only do we have to be concerned about the impact of drugs prescribed to people, but certain pharmaceuticals used on animals as well. Cattle, for instance, is fed a slow-release anabolic steroid to make them gain weight faster, some of which passes through the animal and more often that not ends up in waterways. There, it keeps working affecting fish populations, which show increased levels of steroids as well as physical changes.
I’m sure nobody wants to drink water containing various medicines or even traces of them. So what can we do? The best solution is working towards keeping drugs from reaching the waterways, since this is a long-term threat. Bottled water really is not the answer since no steps are taken to remove the traces of medicines from the spring sources.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and American Pharmacists Association recommend the following methods of disposing of your pharmaceuticals:
• Pour liquid medicine in the plastic bags before disposing in the trash. Birth control patches can be folded and thrown in the garbage.
• Crush the pills in the plastic bags to prevent airborne particles.
• Mix coffee grounds or cat litter in the bag containing the drugs and seal the bag.
• Place the bag in the regular trash fro disposal.
• Don’t forget to remove and destroy all identifying information from the containers before disposing of them (optimally in the recycled bins).
