Environmental hazards of pharmaceutical products
Name(s):
Environmental pollution by drugs
Trace medicines in the environment
Nature
Large quantities of drugs are excreted by humans and domestic animals, and are distributed into the environment by flushing toilets and by spreading manure and sewage sludge onto and into soil. Some drugs reach the environment in their original form, and sometimes as by-products broken down by the human body. Some of the metabolites are more reactive and sometimes more toxic than the parent drug. Pharmaceuticals can be present in the environment at concentrations similar to those of pesticides, and like them they can be highly mobile and persistent.
Incidence
Drug residues seep from a marine waste dump of the north coast of Puerto Rico, where millions of litres of pharamaceutical waste were tipped into the sea annually between 1972 and 1983.
Broader
Narrower
Aggravated by
Strategy(ies)
Type
(D) Detailed problems