A thought, a question, an idea for you to steal....

[go_team]

There needs to be a better way to dispose of medicines (prescription and over-the-counter) than flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash. I think this every time I find some expired cough syrup in the medicine cabinet, or when I hear about another one of those studies where somebody found trace amounts of antidepressants and birth control hormones in some municipal water supply, which is freaky and scary and sad. I know some of it is the drugs that people don't process and pass out in their sweat and urine and whatever, but drugs that get thrown out can't be helping, either. Oh, and in case you'd forgotten, even for a second: antibiotic resistance. That's some bad stuff, mmkay? So yeah. Pharmaceutical pollution. It freaks me out, and I don't even know where to begin dealing with the problem except to ask all my awesome and brilliant friends and readers about it. Go Team!

Comments

[springbok1.livejournal.com]

At work we incinerate most of the excess tablets we're disposing of. At home, I usually just throw them out in the trash. If you're really worried about it, you could probably take it to a hazardous waste drop off site. In many cities it's free to dispose of common household cleaners, so it's probably free to dispose of small amounts of pharmaceuticals as well.

[olstad.livejournal.com]

"Oh, and in case you'd forgotten, even for a second: antibiotic resistance."
That's why it's so important to finish your antibiotic regimen! :) If a patient uses all of the antibiotic (like they're supposed to), there won't be any to throw away.

"I know some of it is the drugs that people don't process and pass out in their sweat and urine and whatever"
This is actually a very small amount in most cases, like 1%. Of course 1% of a small amount multiplied by a large number could be large, I suppose.

I bet you're correct in that drug disposal is actually a much larger problem. Pharmacies (I think) ship all outdated medicine back to the manufacturer and get a small rebate. The manufacturer then disposes of the medicine (probably incinerates it, like at springbok1's company.) I think most consumers just throw away old medicine though- I know I do. If you wanted to deactivated it, maybe you could microwave it. I know a lot of the drug compounds degrade with time, heat, and radiation. (Which is why a bathroom medicine cabinet is not really the best place to store medicine.- ironic huh?) I'll think about it some more...

Of course another problem is all the drugs people are putting in food these days. Did you know that there is insulin in Weight Watcher's cereal? Thankfully you can't absorb insulin through your stomach (which is why diabetics inject it), but still, insulin? Don't people know that can mess you up?

[triath.livejournal.com]

That's why it's so important to finish your antibiotic regimen!

Hee hee, you said "regimen". You sound like a pharmacist already.

[dragonmudd.livejournal.com]

That's why it's so important to finish your antibiotic regimen! :) If a patient uses all of the antibiotic (like they're supposed to), there won't be any to throw away.

Because of my Mitral Valve Prolapse I have been instructed to always take antibiotics before any dental procedures. Prior to my last appointment, I instructed the office to get me a prescription and they did. The prescription I received was to just take four pills an hour before the procedure and that's it (I'm not even totally convinced that there's any good reason for this, and some day I might actually question a professional about it)... but the container had about twenty pills in it. I imagine that mistakes like this happen, so it's not always the consumer's fault.

[clairebaxter.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I don't think I've thought much about throwing drugs away other than it bothers me that they're wasted. (Okay, I'll admit it, it's just that I don't throw them away unless I can tell they're expired, even if I'm never going to take them.) I think I feel similarly about food -- and I can only throw away food that's clearly gone bad. After all, who knows what might come in handy or be needed sometime?

I wish that I could give my unused drugs (unexpired) to other people with the same prescriptions -- especially for drug trials (so expensive!), why can't there be some kind of exchange program, like unusued drugs for poor people or poor countries, like that old glasses program?

Teh buzzword is...

[akjdg.livejournal.com]

The buzzword in the water/wastewater engineering world for this problem is "emerging contaminants" (EC). Because the problem is emerging from the realm of the unknown and becoming a real stickler (or something. I dunno).

One of the concerns is that existing wastewater treatment technologies fail to remove these constituents from wastewater streams, as those plants focus instead on removing BOD, COD, TSS, and pathogens from the wastewater stream. Thus environmental introduction, and fishies that change sex.

The other concern (and I'm less clear on this one) is that water treatment plants may not adequately remove these constituents during treatment. Off the cuff, the only treatment steps likely to remove a good chunk of these chemicals is GAC filtration and chlorination to eat up the organics. How well do they work, and for which of the ECs? Dunno. What kinda of disinfection byproducts (DBPs) are created when you douse exotic pharmeceuticals in free chlorine, and what are their public health implications?

Also, the concerns about DBPs from primary disinfection of drinking water with chlorine is driving a trend away from chlorination towards ozonation or UV radiation, with addition of a chlorine residual at the end of the treatment train. This is better in terms of reducing DBPs, but I don't know how well these technologies perform at EC removal as compared to traditional primary chlorination.

Something to think about...