How Does Pharmaceutical Drugs Affect The Environment

Pharmaceutical drugs have played a large role in increasing the lifespan development, health and overall wellness of millions of people in the past century. These drugs along with other medical advancements have been able to cure and treat several diseases and conditions. Contradictory to the benefits, due to factors as simple as improper disposal, pharmaceutical drugs have also introduced several unintended negative effects on the environment and organisms. The extent of these impacts is not fully understood due to the fact that researchers have just recently began to pay attention to the issue and have not yet drawn exact conclusions, they do know, however, that there is effects on the environment directly related to pharmaceutical drugs.
However these companies remain in question as through our research they have not disclosed any information about how they treat, or dispose of medications. Another alternative is placing medications into a solution of activated charcoal to produce a diluting effect of the drugs potency, making it less harmful to the environment. In addition to what pharmaceutical consumers, a large amount of the responsibility remains in the hands of the manufactures and the pharmacies. One pharmacist, representing CVS stated that when medications are three months from expiring, they are packaged and sent back to the manufacturers for a destroying process. However, we were unable to successfully get in contact with a representative from a manufacturing process to disclose information regarding that process. Through our thinking on this issue we thought of the idea of chemically neutralizing medications which would make them harmless for the environment. This would include adding chemicals to balance the molecular codes found in medications. The primary issue that arises with this solution is that every medication is composed of a different molecular code, meaning that there would be an immense amount of chemical calculations for every medication that has been released in the environment to neutralize them, making them safe