Robert Tell :
You may well have drugs in your tap water.
If you drink bottled water, don’t be reassured. Forty percent of bottled water is just bottled tap water — and the rest is largely unregulated for quality.
The evidence that we have prescription drugs in tap water from public water supplies has been around for years, but got a lot of attention just this year when the Associated Press published the results of a five-month investigation.
The AP reported:
– Traces of epilepsy drugs, birth control pills and other hormones, painkillers, psychiatric drugs, asthma drugs, and many others have been found in public water supplies.
– Besides pharmaceuticals in drinking water, many over-the-counter drugs and compounds from shampoos, detergents and deodorants were found in drinking water, too. The substances have been found almost everywhere researchers have looked for them.
The amount of drugs in tap water is almost always very small — but often there are many combinations of drugs in any given water sample.
Danger from drugs in tap water: an unanswered question
There’s no proof that drugs in our tap water are harmful. The problem is, nobody knows. Benjamin H. Grumbles, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assistant administrator for water, said, “We recognize it is a growing concern and we’re taking it very seriously.”
There are many sources of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, experts believe. Hospitals, pharmacies, clinics and people like you and I often dispose of drugs that are no longer wanted or needed by flushing them down the sink or toilet. Some 40 percent of the antibiotics manufactured in the US are used as growth stimulants for livestock, and their manure might well be a source of drugs in tap water. Leaking septic tanks are another possible source.
Increasing numbers of communities across the country are setting up ways for consumers to return pharmaceuticals for disposal, often by incineration. It’s still not clear if incineration is better for the environment than the slow seepage from a landfill, cautions the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
But as an imperfect, compromise solution, it’s believed that wrapping up unneeded drugs and placing them in the garbage is much better than flushing them.
So early in 2009, Fish and Wildlife will team with the American Pharmacists Association for a drug disposal campaign. The plan is to advise us all to mix unwanted drugs with used cat litter, then put the mixture in the garbage. That’s to discourage dumpster digging by drug addicts.
What we can do about drugs in tap water
Since nobody knows what the danger is from drugs in tap water, it makes sense to be cautious, but not extreme. The long-known hazards to drinking water — pollution from insecticides and weed killers, lead and PCBs — are at least as important a concern. So here are some practical things you can do:
1. Skip the bottled water. At a cost ranging from just under a dollar (for cheap gallon jugs at the supermarket, guaranteed to be just tap water anyway) up to $10 a gallon, it’s the world’s worst and most expensive answer to drugs in tap water. More than 80 percent of the bottles end up in landfills; chemicals leach from the plastic bottle into the water and may affect our health; and the petroleum used to make bottles in the US would fuel about 100,000 cars each year.
2. Don’t flush unneeded drugs down the toilet. If you can, turn them in to a local collection center to be disposed of, often by incineration. Or dump them into used kitty litter before disposing of it. If you don’t have a cat, just do the best you can by wrapping the drugs and disposing of them with the rest of your garbage, in this case, the yuckier the garbage, the better.
3. Don’t use deodorants or other personal care items containing the antibiotic triclosan.
4. If you can afford it, consider organic meats, raised without a diet of antibiotics.
5. Consider a quality home water filter. Then bottle your own water if you wish. Use a glass container or one of a few water bottles on the market that aren’t plastic. Water from the best home filters will typically cost a few pennies a gallon.
You may well have drugs in your tap water.
If you drink bottled water, don’t be reassured. Forty percent of bottled water is just bottled tap water — and the rest is largely unregulated for quality.
The evidence that we have prescription drugs in tap water from public water supplies has been around for years, but got a lot of attention just this year when the Associated Press published the results of a five-month investigation.
The AP reported:
– Traces of epilepsy drugs, birth control pills and other hormones, painkillers, psychiatric drugs, asthma drugs, and many others have been found in public water supplies.
– Besides pharmaceuticals in drinking water, many over-the-counter drugs and compounds from shampoos, detergents and deodorants were found in drinking water, too. The substances have been found almost everywhere researchers have looked for them.
The amount of drugs in tap water is almost always very small — but often there are many combinations of drugs in any given water sample.
Danger from drugs in tap water: an unanswered question
There’s no proof that drugs in our tap water are harmful. The problem is, nobody knows. Benjamin H. Grumbles, US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) assistant administrator for water, said, “We recognize it is a growing concern and we’re taking it very seriously.”
There are many sources of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, experts believe. Hospitals, pharmacies, clinics and people like you and I often dispose of drugs that are no longer wanted or needed by flushing them down the sink or toilet. Some 40 percent of the antibiotics manufactured in the US are used as growth stimulants for livestock, and their manure might well be a source of drugs in tap water. Leaking septic tanks are another possible source.
Increasing numbers of communities across the country are setting up ways for consumers to return pharmaceuticals for disposal, often by incineration. It’s still not clear if incineration is better for the environment than the slow seepage from a landfill, cautions the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
But as an imperfect, compromise solution, it’s believed that wrapping up unneeded drugs and placing them in the garbage is much better than flushing them.
So early in 2009, Fish and Wildlife will team with the American Pharmacists Association for a drug disposal campaign. The plan is to advise us all to mix unwanted drugs with used cat litter, then put the mixture in the garbage. That’s to discourage dumpster digging by drug addicts.
What we can do about drugs in tap water
Since nobody knows what the danger is from drugs in tap water, it makes sense to be cautious, but not extreme. The long-known hazards to drinking water — pollution from insecticides and weed killers, lead and PCBs — are at least as important a concern. So here are some practical things you can do:
1. Skip the bottled water. At a cost ranging from just under a dollar (for cheap gallon jugs at the supermarket, guaranteed to be just tap water anyway) up to $10 a gallon, it’s the world’s worst and most expensive answer to drugs in tap water. More than 80 percent of the bottles end up in landfills; chemicals leach from the plastic bottle into the water and may affect our health; and the petroleum used to make bottles in the US would fuel about 100,000 cars each year.
2. Don’t flush unneeded drugs down the toilet. If you can, turn them in to a local collection center to be disposed of, often by incineration. Or dump them into used kitty litter before disposing of it. If you don’t have a cat, just do the best you can by wrapping the drugs and disposing of them with the rest of your garbage, in this case, the yuckier the garbage, the better.
3. Don’t use deodorants or other personal care items containing the antibiotic triclosan.
4. If you can afford it, consider organic meats, raised without a diet of antibiotics.
5. Consider a quality home water filter. Then bottle your own water if you wish. Use a glass container or one of a few water bottles on the market that aren’t plastic. Water from the best home filters will typically cost a few pennies a gallon.
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