The multitude of personal care items and prescription drugs has Americans opening the medicine cabinet on a daily basis. All these chemicals have to ultimately end up somewhere and, no matter whether these substances have been used or not, they typically land in the same place, our wastewater system.
The pharmaceuticals that have fought the battle in our bodies and have been flushed from our systems, or the shampoos that have nourished our hair follicles and then washed away, and our unused drugs and lotions are all meeting the same fate with the surplus being dumped down the toilet.
The combination of emerging technology creating more precise methods of chemical analysis with greater public and governmental scrutiny of water quality has led to local governmental agencies throughout the country turning their attention to chemical contaminants in water. But the resistance of some of these products to even the most advanced modes of processing means they are passing through the wastewater treatment plants and being discharged back into the environment.
“The cumulative effect of these substances in our water supply is yet to be fully realized.”
Agencies involved in wastewater treatment test for different classifications of chemicals. It is only now that detectable quantities of these routinely used medications and personal care items are being identified in water quality studies. Some of the most commonly found categories and representative examples of chemicals and substances are: analgesics (acetaminophen), antibiotics (erythromycin and tetracycline), antidepressants (sertraline), contraceptives and hormone treatments (estrogen), hypnotics (diazepam), musks (nitromusks), and the various steroids (cholesterol). While it is the chemical compounds that are being tested and thus identified in the literature, they represent commonly used brand names including Tylenol, Zoloft and Valium.
“The studies have been going on for decades,” explained Anne Heil, Supervising Engineer with the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts’ Water Quality Section. “But the issue took a lot more prominence earlier this decade when the U.S. Geological Survey did a study of surface water from about 140 rivers and streams across the nation and started looking specifically at what pharmaceuticals were present. And I think it surprised people just how prevalent they were in the water.”
In the years 1999 and 2000, the U.S. Geological Survey undertook the first nationwide examination of pharmaceutical contaminants within our waterways. Some 139 streams and rivers were sampled across 30 states, including California, and analyzed for 95 different organic wastewater containments. The compounds were selected of the basis of their usage, toxicity, potential hormonal activity and persistence in the environment. At least one of the 95 containments were identified in 80% of the steams sampled with one of the tested locations exhibiting the presence of 38 different substances.
The resistance of some of these products to even the most advanced modes of processing means they are passing through the wastewater treatment plants and being discharged back into the environment.
While the cumulative effect of these substances in our water supply is yet to be fully realized, one of the most alarming and significant consequences that has so far surfaced surrounds the threat these pollutants impose upon fish. A study was done by the Environmental and Comparative Endocrinology Laboratory at the University of Colorado examining the white sucker fish residing downstream of a wastewater treatment plant in Boulder Creek, Colorado. It found seriously askew male-female ratios, when compared to the population upstream. And many of the inhabitants sampled downstream also possessed both male and female reproductive tissues.
The results of a University of New Brunswick study furthered these concerns. In this study, synthetic estrogen, the type found in birth control pills, was added to the water of a Canadian lake and the effect upon the local fathead fish population was astonishing. Their reproductive processes and reproductive rate plummeted. The entire population collapsed.
Endocrine disruptors pose a direct threat to aquatic life affecting both the production and metabolism of the body’s natural hormones, but other chemicals, many of which are considered nontoxic, can also influence physiological processes within the body. And a recent study revealed that some of these nontoxic substances can seemingly make an organism more susceptible to other more harmful compounds.
Many personal care products (including synthetic fragrances used in soaps and shampoos) are typically viewed as being nontoxic. But a 2004 study of California mussels by Stanford University scientists suggested that chemical agents within these substances might elevate an organism’s susceptibility to various toxins already within the environment. Given these findings, the question of the potential risk to humans created by these chemicals in the environment is raised. “There are still a lot of unknowns,” cautioned Heil.
“We have a program called No Drugs Down The Drain and through that we have been educating the public about how inappropriate it is to put their waste pharmaceuticals down the toilet. Obviously when you are taking medicines, that’s not possible, but we want to take every step possible to minimize what is going into the system.”
In support of programs such as No Drugs Down The Drain there is currently a bill being considered by California Legislature that would amend the Health and Safety Code and require every retailer of pharmaceutical drugs in California to implement a pharmaceutical collection system. This would help ensure the proper disposal of prescription pharmaceuticals.
In addition to reducing the input of substances into the wastewater system, local government agencies have begun upgrading their facilities to incorporate more advanced detection and treatment technologies. The Orange County Water District in conjunction with the West Basin Municipal Water District in Los Angeles successfully removed pharmaceuticals identified within wastewater via reverse osmosis purification. Contaminant removal is by no means a straightforward procedure.
The chemical complexities of these pharmaceuticals and body care products require many different processes to remove the variety of compounds that form these pollutants. These chemicals are entering the water cycle and not being adequately removed. And we are putting them there; it’s not factories or trucks, it’s all of us. There is no question that our waterways and groundwater resemble a small-scale drugstore.
Information on the No Drugs Down the Drain program can be found at www.nodrugsdownthedrain.org.
Brett Leigh Dicks is an Australian writer and photographer based in Santa Barbara. Educated and trained in scientific photography, he also teaches Cellular Biology at Santa Barbara City College.
