[Pharmwaste] FW: 99.9% of drugs in water are from excretion

Tenace, Laurie Laurie.Tenace at dep.state.fl.us
Wed Jul 7 13:33:09 EDT 2010


Several months ago a list serve member mentioned that 99.9% of active pharmaceutical ingredient surface water releases were from patient excretion. I stumbled across this reference to that number the other day:


page 69 of http://nepis.epa.gov/EPA/html/DLwait.htm?url=/Adobe/PDF/P1001AWF.PDF (or section 6.3)



EPA performed a literature search for studies or reports on pharmaceuticals disposed of in landfills. EPA found that in 2007, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) evaluated the potential for 24 active pharmaceutical ingredients to leach from MSW landfills and their potential releases to surface water (Tischler, 2007). PhRMA compared the modeled landfill leachate releases to estimates of surface water releases from disposal of unused pharmaceuticals down the drain. PhRMA selected the 24 example pharmaceutical ingredients to represent a range of sales per year in the U.S. (i.e., high quantities and low quantities) and a range of physical-chemical properties. These pharmaceutical ingredients were also evaluated in the 2002 USGS study of pharmaceuticals in surface waters (Kolpin et al., 2002).



The PhRMA study calculated that the landfill disposal pathway to surface water accounted for an average of 0.03% to 0.10% of the estimated aggregate annual surface water releases for the 24 active pharmaceutical ingredients. Therefore, the study estimated that over 99.9% of active pharmaceutical ingredient surface water releases would be due to patient excretion, not landfill disposal of unused medicines, assuming that landfill disposal were used for all unused medicine disposal. The evaluation was based on the assumption that the efficiency of the pharmaceuticals partitioning to solids in the landfill is 50% of the efficiency of partitioning in a biological wastewater treatment unit (Tischler, 2007).



Laurie Tenace

Environmental Specialist

Waste Reduction Section

Florida Department of Environmental Protection

2600 Blair Stone Rd., MS 4555

Tallahassee FL 32399-2400

P: 850.245.8759

F: 850.245.8811

Laurie.Tenace at dep.state.fl.us



Mercury: http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/mercury/default.htm



Batteries: http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/batteries/default.htm



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http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/medications/default.htm

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http://www.dep.state.fl.us/waste/categories/hazardous/pages/household.htm






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