Environmental Pharmaceutical Pollution

In the world of today, pharmaceuticals are having a negative impact on the environment as a whole, affecting a wide range of life, including animals and humans. As a result of these pollutants not being disposed of properly, some are finding their way into the water systems that eventually lead to other water sources that supply our drinking water. Some of the pollutants are also finding some way of getting into the environment through the excretion of wastes by both humans and animals alike. Simple actions such as throwing some pharmaceuticals out in the garbage or flushing them down the toilet are causing potential risks, as the earth's surroundings are becoming exposed to these chemicals. Regardless of the methods that are used to get into the environment, these chemicals are now showing up in places that they should not be and are causing unwanted effects.

A problem that adds to this issue of pharmaceuticals polluting our surroundings is the fact that waste treatment centers do not at this time treat the water going through for medicinal compounds such as these. Subsequently, the medicines can simply pass right through without any form of detection whatsoever. This lack of a detection becomes a problem when you add in other factors and consider the following: 1) World wide, there is a vast quantity of pharmaceuticals that are used daily. 2) Of the many medicines and chemicals used on this daily basis, a quite large proportion filter their way in some way or some how into the environment through the various means that I described earlier. This alone is enough to try to solve this problem by conducting better methods of disposal for these pharmaceuticals. If a solution is not discovered for the current problem, we could face disastrous results, such as antibiotic-resistant bacteria growing and spreading uncontrollably and infecting people and animals as a result.

http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/06/02/16/pharmaceutical-pollution-what-it-is-and-how-pharmaceutical-pollution-threatens-your-health.htm
http://www.laleva.org/eng/2006/02/how_pharmaceutical_pollution_threatens_your_health.html