Written by: Denise Civiletti Last updated on 3-18-2011
http://riverheadlocal.com/general-health-topics/1757-is-your-drinking-water-contaminated-by-prescription-drugs
Picture: This picture shows someone putting their prescription drugs down the toilet, which is the cause of prescription drugs in our tap water.
Summary: Recent environmental studies have now shown that your drinking water could be contaminated with pharmaceutical drugs. The main cause of these compounds in our drinking water is the practice of people flushing unwanted drugs down the toilet. Some of the drugs in your tap water may include heart medications, antibiotics, estrogen, mood stabilizers, tranquilizers, contraceptives, and steroids. Some effects of humans drinking contaminated water are hormone distribution, antibiotic resistance, and synergistic effects. The contaminated water not only can affect humans, but also the aquatic life. The biggest concern is antidepressants, which can alter the behavior and reproductive functions of the fish. Many people are beginning to understand what is happening and are taking action. In particular, the Eastern Long Island Hospital in Greenport by having its own community medication disposal program. The article says, "The issue is especially important as the population ages and more people are taking various maintenance medications, according to both environmental advocates and hospital administrators".
Opinion/ Reflection:
Wow! I was honestly so shocked about this! I had no idea that our drinking water could have prescription drugs in it. It makes sense though, I always thought that put drugs down the toilet was a little "fishy" or not right. This is obviously something we need to take care of. So many people are trying to "go green", which involves drinking tap water instead of bottle water. But as we can see from this article it may not be safe to drink your sink water. I think the scariest part about this is the compounds are so small, that you could drink tons of medication and not even know it.
Questions:
Could there be other causes to having drugs in our drinking water, other then flushing down the toilet?
What are people doing to take action and get the drugs out of our drinking water?
What is the proper way to dispose of prescription drugs?
Reaction: MY FACE :O I actually almost started crying when I read this because I am a big tap water drinker, especially late at night when I wake up thirsty, resulting in me drinking a whole cup . But it confuses me how the prescription drugs makes its way from our toilets to tap water, wouldn't that mean part of our tap water is also toilet water? That's also something gross to think about, because I would think there are separate types of water for bathing, toilets, and drinking. Now it makes me think of what pro cautions i should take before drinking my tap water, such as getting one of those filtering water bottles!
ReplyDeleteQuestion: "What are people doing to take action and get the drugs out of our drinking water?"
I definitely remember there being commercials about not flushing prescription drugs down the toilet, and I think that we should bring those back! Also doctors/pharmacists should tell patients how to correctly dispose of their medication. As long as our physicians inform people who take these medicines how to dispose of their medication, we shouldn't have a problem with our tap water.
Opinion/Reflection
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting! This is the first time I have heard of prescription drugs in our tap water. I’m a little bit confused by this because toilets lead to the ocean, but the ocean is so vast. I feel like there aren’t enough people flushing their drugs in the toilet for this to be such a huge issue. Also, no one is complaining about waste (knock on wood) in our water, so I do not understand how that is much different. I feel like I’m being a negative Nelly here, but if our water filters are doing their jobs, this should not be an issue. But it concerns me that someone out there is getting a big ol’ dose of steroids when all they wanted was a nice sip of water! I hope this never happens to my family because we have a Brita filter, so we pour tap water into a filtered jar-thing and then we pour the filtered water into our cups. I hope these prescription drugs are not that plentiful out there in our tap system.
What is the proper way to dispose of prescription drugs?
Neither flushing drugs down the drain nor throwing them out will do any good, because when you throw them out they are able to harm animals who live near dumps and use that as their food supply. Eastern Long Island Hospital has the right idea with having their own medication disposal program! That sounds like a great way to dispose of any drugs that you aren’t using!
Opinion/Reflection
ReplyDeleteThis actually really intrigued me and concerned me. It intrigued me because I never realized that small things like medicine from pills may not be able to be filtered out of our daily tap water because the particles are so small. It concerns me that this means that we could all be ingesting insane amounts of different drugs every day and not even realize it. I also wonder how strong our filters need to be to actually completely purify our water from anything like this. Do regular tap filters do the job well enough? Do those extra filters(like Brita) really help? Can we prevent this from happening in the first place before it recirculates back into our tap water?
"What is the proper way to dispose of prescription drugs?"
As far as I know, there isn't one. Most people will either use up whatever drugs they need to buy, or keep them around until somebody else needs them. The only scenario I can think of where the drugs would need to be disposed of is either when they expire, or if somebody is cleaning out their medicine cabinet. The safest way I can think of the dispose of these drugs without being harmful to ourselves or the environment is to bring them to a local pharmacy, or ask your physician if they can put them into some form of recycling for future use.
This is really shocking! We learned about the different things you could find in your water, but I would never excpect percription drugs to possibly contaminate my water. After reading this article, it makes sense. I am almost positive my family has dumped their pills into the toilet and I have seen it done on tv shows. Now, I know never to do that. I would never want to be worried about have some strong medication in my drinking water. The only way I will know for sure is if the word is spread and people know to get rid of their drugs another way. By doing this, we will not only help ourselves, but help aquadic life also.
ReplyDelete"What are people doing to take action and get the drugs out of our drinking water?"
As Dianna said in the comments above, there were definataly commericails about preventing this problem. They should bring them back if it is still happening. Nothing will get solved if no one is aware about the issue. Also, when putting the commericials back on air, they should make sure people know what to do with the drugs besides spilling them into the toilet.