Drugs are polluting our waterways and effecting our aquatic ecosystems! There have been proposals to change the waste water treatment plants and equip them with better machinery which would filter the waste better so that very little amounts of the drugs would go through unharmed. As of now almost all of the drugs go through these treatment plants unscathed. Pharmaceutical companies are unwilling to pay for the cost of revolutionizing the waste treatment facilities.
Some fish living in the waters that have been effected in the following ways: eating extreme amounts, becoming bold and moving into new and uncertain areas, and they are becoming anti-social, and unwilling to mate. Young Perch feed on zoo plankton, which in turn feed on algae. If drugged young perch are continuously gobbling up the zoo plankton then there will be no zoo plankton to feed on algae and the algae will thrive. Zebra fish are affected by a reduced courtship and if they do not want to mate then there will be no new generation to replace the last.
We all know that a small change in a smaller ecosystem can have a huge effect on the on the entire ecosystem. Is the cost too great for pharmaceutical companies to provide better waste water treatment facilities when they are making millions selling these exact drugs that are the problem? Should we just allow them to sabotage the aquatic environment? Once enough destruction of aquatic environments occurs it is only a matter of time before it has an effect on the dry environments the two go hand in hand.
Tonya Sulham (3)
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Improper waste removal can definitely cause damage to the environment and is a valid concern. Has there been legislature put in place to prevent these actions, and if so, how are the companies able to continue to place waste in the environment? Does the location matter, or is it the same for all countries and states?
ReplyDelete-Ashley Sterpka (1)
Do you think that people will ever take more notice and awareness towards these issues? It not only harms species that you mentioned, but it can also harm us as well. Since we consume many of this things as well. Maybe once people realize the problems against humans, they will take more notice toward the environment.
ReplyDeleteCynthia Bui (1)
I'm a little unclear about how the drugs are getting into the enviroment. Are the companies just dumping excess drug materials from manufacture into waste treatment facilities that fail to filter out the drugs? Or are they passing into ecosystems from patients after they take them? Anyway, I agree that this is a serious problem, and the drug companies should contribute more to addressing it.
ReplyDeletePosted by Sean McDougall (3)
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ReplyDeleteWaste water treatment plants obviously have certain regulations that they must follow. However, with the amount of drugs that are perscribed nowadays compared to when these facilities were built drug removal was never even concieved of then.
ReplyDeleteYes patients are passing these drugs in their urine and it is unscathed in the waste water facilities processing. The drugs are 'happy pills' including prozac and other antidepressants as well as birth control pills containing estrogens. Go figure these are probably two of the most commonly perscribed drugs today; which is why this is becoming such a problem.
I hope that people will start to pay more attention to this situation because it could become detrimental to the environment; which ofcourse will effect our species as well as every other species. All living things require the environment to be atleast somewhat stable, one small change can have a domino effect.
Tonya Sulham (3)
Politics and greed. These companies could most likely afford the machinery, they just don't want to put out. They make millions on the drugs and I feel in most cases they do not care about the damage being done because it does not directly affect them.
ReplyDeleteSunni-Lynn Farias (1)
Greed and the lack of will to change will always be the downfall of any natural system. It's sickening to ready about this because you know that those heads of the companies hardly care about what they're doing and it's a shame to see what results from dumping substances into water ways, especially knowing that all water will come back to us eventually, so everybody will be effected by it one way or another.
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