[Pharmwaste] short article: A Solution to Pharmaceutical Pollution?

[Rita Wong]

Hello,
Below is an article I recently wrote, and thought might be of interest  
to folks on this list. If you have any suggestions as to where it  
should be circulated, I'd be happy to hear from you.
Kind regards,
Rita Wong

****
A Solution to Pharmaceutical Pollution?

Today, pollution is shifting so that it is not merely something out  
there (smog, tons of plastic suspended in the ocean) but also  
something inside each and every one of us, spread by our shared  
experience of air, water, and food. The term "body burden" refers to  
the hundreds of chemicals now found in the average citizen around the  
world, chemicals that did not exist in our bodies before World War II.  
Some of these chemicals have been shown to cause organ damage as well  
as cancer in various studies. There is no escape from pollution, but  
there may be possible solutions if we pay attention.

Last year, four engineering students at Ryerson University won an  
award for their final year project--designing a process to remove  
residual pharmaceuticals from wastewater. As someone concerned about  
residual drugs in our sewage, I was very excited to learn of their  
work. So, I tracked down Reuben Fernandes, Kirill Cheiko, Charles  
Gilmour and Pawel Kita, and asked them a few questions about their  
project.

They’ve all graduated. Fernandes will study public policy next year,  
and Gilmour has gone on to graduate studies, where he is investigating  
mutagens that form in wastewater. Cheiko is working for a consulting  
engineering company designing water treatment systems for industrial  
and municipal sectors, while Kita is working at an automotive company.  
All of them want a chance to build a laboratory prototype to test  
their design, and they recently shared their work at the Northeast  
Water Science Forum in Portland, Maine, this April.

The three-stage process they developed uses commercially available  
technologies--such  as advanced screening, a Canadian hollow-fiber  
membrane system, and a UV light/hydrogen peroxide reactor--but what is  
unique is that this particular combination removes traces of  
pharmaceuticals. Conventional wastewater treatment plants were not  
designed to handle everything from antibiotics to cancer drugs, pain  
relievers, and endocrine disruptors.

They chose seven representative compounds from five pharmaceutical/EDC  
families that are the most toxic and/or concentrated in wastewater,  
and methodically set out to remove them. Given the hundreds, possibly  
thousands of different drugs in the water, this is no mean challenge.   
Cheiko would like their system to target hospital wastewater, where  
such drugs are particularly concentrated. Having seen my own  
hospitalized family members ingest strong anti-cancer drugs that  
should not even be touched, and then flush their toxic wastes into  
municipal waters, I appreciate their focus on hospitals.

Gilmour explains, "With enough time or energy, organic compounds  
(which these drugs are) will keep breaking down until they reach the  
base level of becoming water and carbon dioxide, which is ideally the  
goal."  While the process they’ve designed takes a bit longer than  
conventional treatment, it can remove more than 90% of pharmaceuticals  
and endocrine disruptors.

I asked them if they’d had any surprises in doing their team project.  
Cheiko says, "I was surprised that the effects of the residual  
pharmaceuticals on wildlife are pretty well known, yet little is being  
done to remediate the situation."  Deformed, intersex fish affected by  
this pollution have been found from the Potomac watershed (Washington  
DC, 2003) to Puget Sound (Seattle) to Lake Mead (Las Vegas), as well  
as high rates of dead fish in some cases.

Given these effects, it's logical to ask what’s in store for humans  
too.  Gilmour argues persuasively for a precautionary principle--it  
being more cost-effective to reduce these chemicals as quickly as  
possible, rather than to wait to find out the costs to our health and  
environment. This happened with ozone and the Montreal Protocol in  
1989, which is estimated to have saved billions of dollars in economic  
and environmental disruption. In light of all the malformed fish, it  
is also surprising that there doesn’t seem to be more urgency among  
our leaders to address this very real problem.

Some of these drugs, such as endocrine disruptors, can have effects at  
very low concentrations. What’s more, the cumulative effect of all  
these chemicals mixing and interacting remains anyone’s guess.  "This  
is a serious problem, one that will only get worse in the foreseeable  
future if action is not taken soon," says Fernandes.  Perhaps more  
municipalities should be talking to these guys, who are working on  
real solutions.  While preventing these chemicals from entering the  
wastewater is one real step more people can take, I don’t see our meds  
disappearing from hospitals anytime soon, so this project deserves  
more public support.

For more information about their project, contact Reuben Fernandes at reuben.fernandes at gmail.com 
  or Charles Gilmour at crgilmour at gmail.com



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