The medicines we produce come with great health benefits. Sadly, though, they can also come with harmful side-effects to the environment. Take birth control pills. They have been a great boon to women everywhere by allowing them to control their reproductive functions. Yet the estrogen content of contraceptives, when it leaks into streams and rivers (via urine flushed down in toilets), can adversely affect the behaviors fish.
And birth control pills are hardly the only pharmaceutical products that can harm the environment. According to a new study by the US government, drug-manufacturing facilities are a large source of environmental pollution. When wastewater treatment plants fail to filter out chemical compounds used in the manufacture of pharmaceuticals and personal care products, these chemicals can seep into freshwater systems and oceans where they can wreak havoc with ecosystems.
In 2017, a study by UNESCO, “Pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment of the Baltic Sea region,” found that effluents discharged from municipal wastewater treatment plants routinely contained significant amounts of chemicals. “Only nine out of 118 assessed pharmaceuticals were removed from wastewater during the treatment processes with an efficiency of over 95 per cent, and nearly half of the compounds were removed only partially with an efficiency of less than 50 per cent,” the report noted.
The UN’s Environment Agency is now warning that there is an increased risk of more and more harmful chemicals from cosmetics and pharmaceuticals leaching into freshwater sources and the seas. “Modern wastewater treatment plants mostly reduce solids and bacteria by oxidizing the water. They were not designed to deal with complex chemical compounds,” explains Birguy Lamizana, a program management officer at UN Environment who is an on wastewater and aquatic ecosystems.
The solution, the UN says, lies in ensuring that chemical traces of drugs are removed at source before they can reach wastewater treatment plants. “Business leaders and policymakers globally should take note, and act by the precautionary principle in environmental decision-making,” the UN advises. “Freshwater ecosystems are both disproportionately important and under threat. Lakes, rivers, and wetlands are essential for human life, health and, livelihoods. They directly provide our water for food, industry, and for drinking purposes.”
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