How Do Prescription Drugs Affect The Environment

Americans spend billions of dollars on prescription drugs every year. Tiny amounts of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, hormones, mood stabilizers, and other drugs are in our drinking water supplies, in soils, surface waters and groundwaters. People have been flushing down unwanted medicines in the toilet for a long time and this is affecting the rivers and even the water that we drink.
After being taken these medicines are eventually eliminated from the body and flushed into the water supply. Many people also flush unused medicines down their toilets as a means of disposal. Flushing unused medications was a traditional method recommended for years, even by health care professionals. It seemed the safest way to dispose of prescription drugs to keep them out of the wrong hands.
This presents a problem because small amounts of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, hormones, mood stabilizers, and other drugs were found in our drinking water. Some pharmaceuticals remain despite wastewater treatments and cleansing by water treatment plants. Also, these medications find their way to the rivers and lakes because of that, it causes a problem to the aquatic environment because medicine
The pro’s of not flushing down medicines is that the environment will not be harmed greatly even though medicines find another way of entering our water still there are little things that we could help with that could make a great impact on the environment. The con’s is that pharmaceuticals will still enter our water streams by excretion from the body. Even though not flushing down medicines is not that greatly effective and there are still ways of medicines getting into our waterways still by not flushing down we are helping a lot. We should not waste medications. Also, you could give the expired medicine to your local pharmacy and they will dispose of it for you for