Water, Water Everywhere

Pharmaceuticals Helping or Hurting?

Every country around the world has their own ways of going about different problems. Some countries do not believe in the use of medicine, but they believe in their religion to help the weak to survive. But, as technology advances and more diseases grow and spread, people begin to rely on pharmaceuticals in order to save them from their sickness. Pharmaceuticals are so popularly used across the world, that if there is an issue with them in one place, that same issue would most likely occur somewhere else. Recent studies show that water is being polluted by pharmaceuticals all over the world. The drugs are showing up in our nation’s water bodies and are causing ecological harms and are causing concerns for harms to animals and humans. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, is committed to investigating this topic and developing strategies to help protect the health of both the environment and the public. Pharmaceutical drugs are entering the water in simple ways that humans would not even think about during their daily tasks. A common way that drugs get into our nations water is by people not properly disposing their extra and left-over pills. Pharmaceuticals are also entering our water when people take medicine and then urinate. Before wastewater is dispersed into rivers, lakes, and other bodies of water it is treated in water plants. Once the water is in these bodies of water, drinking companies take some of the water and it is then cleaned again for consumers to use. Although waste treatments do clean out products for the water to be used, they do not always get rid of drug residue. Water treatment plants are not required to test for pharmaceuticals within the water which