Written by Mrs. Toole’s Environmental Science 9 classes. (Katie Ressler, Abbi Stillson, Tim Newbill, Kenny Anderson, Ellis Beardsley & Stephanie Liu)Have you ever been in a drug store; with aisles and walls packed with pharmaceuticals? Imagine all of the pills and drugs in your water! Without being properly disposed of, they can be harmful to the environment. So, what are the pharmaceuticals? Pharmaceuticals are any kind of drug, vitamin or chemical that can enter our water. From prescription drugs like penicillin, to over the counter drugs such as; Advil, cold medicine, and even vitamin and supplements like vitamin B or fish oils. There are many ways pharmaceuticals move through the water system. Uneducated people throw pharmaceuticals into our water not realizing the harm their bringing to the organisms that depend on the water. Some of the ways include people flushing unneeded pills down the toilet. Another way is that farmers take care of livestock and beef them up for the market. When the livestock creates waste some of the chemicals used in the medicine is not absorbed by the body, and so is used for fertilizer and is washed into the waterways through the process of runoff. The water treatment plants do not have the time and money to get rid of these chemicals and it goes right back to us. In conclusion, these are some of the ways pharmaceuticals contaminate our water. Pharmaceuticals in the water have many harmful effects on an ecosystem. Animals living near water resources that are contaminated with various pharmaceuticals will often develop life threatening mutations. Frogs have been discovered with mutated legs and eyeballs and land species such as birds and deer have become very sick. The mutations in frogs and other amphibians often come in the form of birth defects. Fish, which are constantly in direct contact with the water, are often an important indicator species to the quality of our water resources. |
If the water is not pure they can develop large red tumors which are usually located near the mouth. Drugs in the water have even caused fish to become sterile. These medications that are getting into water may have effects on the human population. When the chemicals from the drugs are flushed they go through the waste water treatment centers but all of the chemicals are not always removed from our water. They eventually circle back and we find these chemicals in our drinking water! Many people end up drinking antibiotics that they never even needed in the first place!
Pharmaceuticals are affecting all forms of life because to have life you need water, and pharmaceuticals are in our water. There are many ways to properly dispose of pharmaceuticals without getting them in our water system. One way is to ask your pharmacy if they will take your medication back. If your pharmacy does not take back your pharmaceuticals, you should take action and try to persuade them into doing so to help our environment. Another action would be to take your entire medication. You can also put them in many layers of bags or containers filled with undesirable substances like kitty litter or coffee grinds. This will prevent them from being leached into the environment. In conclusion, it is imperative that we share this information with others. We can do this through talking to others, using the media and teaching by example. Another thing you can do is inform your parents so they can change where they discard the pharmaceuticals. Also, it is essential that we put an end to this before it gets worse. Protect our waters, we drink it! |
Pharmaceuticals impact Water Quality
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Location: Warren