We take a huge number of drugs. So it's not surprising that the drugs that most people take most liberally - painkillers, antibiotics, antiseptics, contraceptive pills and beta-blockers - find their way into water supplies. It was back in the early 1990s that researchers first identified trace amounts of therapeutic drugs in surface waters and groundwater. This sounded alarm bells and, since then, surveys in Europe and the US have found traces of around 100 of these compounds in surface waters, groundwater, sewage, effluent from wastewater treatment plants, and, more worryingly, tap water.
What's in your tap? When people take a drug, only a fraction is absorbed. The rest is often excreted in unmetabolised form, where it enters raw sewage. The flushing of unused or expired medication down the toilet, and drug-containing waste from manufacturing facilities are other routes by which pharmaceuticals find their way into wastewater. The methods of disposal of unused drugs, from hospitals and other care facilities, is an area that the EPA recently stated its intention to investigate.
During 1999-2000, the U.S. Geological Survey
conducted the first nationwide investigation of the occurrence of pharmaceuticals, hormones and other organic contaminants in 139 streams from 30 states. A total of 95 contaminants were targeted including antibiotics, prescription and nonprescription drugs, steroids and hormones, 82 of which were found in at least one sample. Although researchers caution that sites were chosen based on their increased susceptibility to contamination from urban or agricultural activities, a surprising 80 percent of streams sampled were positive for one or more contaminant. Furthermore, 75 percent of the streams contained two or more contaminants, 54 percent had greater than five, while 34 percent had more than 10 and a whopping 13 percent tested positive for more than 20 targeted contaminants.1 Similar reconnaissance studies are ongoing to evaluate the presence of pharmaceuticals in groundwater and surface water sources of drinking water.
In 2002, in
the first nationwide study in the US, Dana Kolpin a hydrologist from the US Geological Survey (USGS) in Iowa, found contaminants in 80 per cent of sampled streams.
1 Among the most frequently detected compounds were the steroids coprostanol and cholesterol, the insect repellant
N ,
N -diethyltoluamide (DEET), caffeine and triclosan, an antimicrobial disinfectant. The average number of compounds in a given sample was seven, but the researchers found as many as 38 (out of the 95 targeted) compounds in one sample.
http://www.gwconsortium.org/Pharmaceuticals-Water.php http://www.wcponline.com/NewsView.cfm?ID=2199 http://www.greatlakescleanwater.org/#!drugs-in-our-water http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2008/September/SomethingInTheWater.asp http://www.waterpurificationhq.com/water-purification-under-threat-pharmaceuticals-in-your-drinking-water/ Water Facts WATER AND EARTH
- Three-quarters of the Earth's surface is covered with water, yet 98 percent is salt water and not fit for consumption.
- Less than one percent of all the water on Earth is freshwater available for human consumption, presently 2/3's of the unutilized fresh water is locked in Ice thats reccedeing annually by evaporation or runoff into the sea.
WATER AND HUMANS * The human body is more than 60 percent water. Blood is 92 percent water, the brain and muscles are 75 percent water, and bones are about 22 percent water.
* A human can survive for a month or more without eating food, but only a week or so without drinking water.
WATER CONSUMPTION * 3.9 trillion gallons of water are consumed in the United States per month. (AWWA Journal, June 2006)
* The average American uses 176 gallons of water per day compared to 5 gallons of water the average African family uses each day. (
www.water.org)
http://www.waterinfo.org/resources/water-facts
