250 Million Pounds of Drugs Flushed Down the Toilet by Hospitals
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 09.23.08
Creative Commons: Swanksalot
You can't win. The entire environmental movement is down on bottled water (and making progress) when the word comes out that hospitals and nursing homes are flushing about 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals down the toilet every year. Associated Press says that "Researchers are finding evidence that even extremely diluted concentrations of pharmaceutical residues harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species in the wild. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs."
Associated Press broke the story of how 46 million Americans drink water with traces of pharmaceuticals back in March, and now a House panel is being asked to look at the issue.
See movie on proper disposal here
Meanwhile, what's a TreeHugger to do? The FDA and the Office of National Drug Control Policy say that you should crush them and mix them with your kitty litter or coffee grounds. However they still recommend that you flush certain desirable drugs, like OxyContin or Percocet, down the toilet or people might be picking through your kitty litter. ::Associated Press via ::GreenDaily
More on Drugs in Water in TreeHugger
Drugs Are In Our Water ! Should I Switch to Bottled? :
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Trace Pharmaceuticals in Water Supply Not a Good Reason to Drink ...
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Require the pharmaceitucal companies to take back unused drugs, or else pay another company to take care of waste disposal. They've got plenty of chemists to figure out how to turn those drugs into harmless molecules.