[Pharmwaste] short article: A Solution to
PharmaceuticalPollution? Costs, residuals
Rita Wong
rwong at eciad.ca
Thu Jul 14 16:09:08 EDT 2011
Thanks a lot for your questions and comments, Al and Jack. I'll
forward them along, and keep them in mind if I revise the article
someday.
Best wishes,
Rita
On 14-Jul-11, at 8:04 AM, Al White wrote:
> Jack:
>
> We have taken sewage cessation/ sequestration, natural symbiotic
> "Mineralization" and infinite, self maintenance, enhancement and
> "Sustainability" to the highest possible level.
>
> At our company, we do not believe that it is safe to recycle/ re-use
> any fluids and/ or solids (sludges) from any of today's waste-water/
> sewage discharge streams, sewage plant or septic tank, for any
> purpose . Today's discharge streams contain more than 20,000,000
> exotic, man made compounds that comprise every imaginable product
> that we ingest, imbibe, trans-dermally absorb, inhale and/or inject.
> These compounds are
>
> collectively referred to as PPCP,s (pharmaceuticals & personal care
> products) and EDC,s (endocrine disrupting compounds). At the present
> time there in no known effective, reliable and, most importantly,
> sustainable method for "mineralizing" these compounds down to their
> benign, re-usable compounds of (bio-genic) carbon dioxide (zero
> carbon footprint) and distilled water vapor. The long term effects
> of contact with humans is totally unknown at this time. But we do
> know that fish and other aquatic organisms are being feminized (no
> more males) from being in contact with today's treated waste-water
> discharges to earth's receiving soils and water bodies.
>
> At our company we sequester all waste-water in a "Constructed
> Woodland"TM and allow trillions of naturally occurring, aerobic
> organisms to "Mineralize" (de-construct) the compounds and evaporate
> >> condense the fluids/ solids creating a "Zero Sewage" condition.
> The system is self sustaining, symbiotic, requiring near zero
> maintenance from man, can be totally powered by solar and/or wind
> and possesses an infinite, self enhancing life cycle expectancy.
>
>
>
> Al White
>
> 607-738-2034
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Price, John L. "Jack"" <John.L.Price at dep.state.fl.us
> >
> To: "'Rita Wong'" <rwong at eciad.ca>; <pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us>
> Sent: Thursday, July 14, 2011 10:45 AM
> Subject: RE: [Pharmwaste] short article: A Solution to
> PharmaceuticalPollution? Costs, residuals
>
>
> Rita: Thanks for the summary. 2 questions pop up that this
> particular research was not designed to address. I ask them
> rhetorically because they are difficult to answer and the related
> policy questions are thorny. As we move from bench scale processes
> to wastewater treatment facility scale, we will confront these
> questions.
>
> 1. What additional costs for treatment equipment and treatment time,
> " the process they've designed takes a bit longer than conventional
> treatment," will this treatment process entail? There are probably
> thousands of treatment facilities nationwide. Infrastructure
> maintenance and upgrades for all utility infrastructure is seriously
> underfunded as it is. There will be hard choices if we chose to
> increase treatment plant costs for additional treatment equipment/
> time at the expense of something else.
> 2. What is the fate and transport of the removed compounds when we
> dispose of or land apply the treatment plant residuals? These
> compounds may report back to the environment in higher
> concentrations or more harmful chemical forms.
>
> Jack
>
> John L. (Jack) Price
> Environmental Manager
> Waste Reduction MS 4555
> Florida Department of Environmental Protection
> 2600 Blair Stone Road
> Tallahassee, FL 32399-2400
> Phone:850.245.8751
> Fax: 850.245.8811
> john.l.price at dep.state.fl.us
> www.dep.state.fl.us/waste
> Please Note: Florida has a very broad public records law. Most
> written communications to or from state officials regarding state
> business are public records available to the public and media upon
> request. Your e-mail is communications and may therefore be subject
> to public disclosure.
>
>
>
>
>
> The Department of Environmental Protection values your feedback as a
> customer. DEP Secretary Herschel T. Vinyard Jr. is committed to
> continuously assessing and improving the level and quality of
> services provided to you. Please take a few minutes to comment on
> the quality of service you received. Copy the url below to a web
> browser to complete the DEP survey: http://survey.dep.state.fl.us/?refemail=John.L.Price@dep.state.fl.us
> Thank you in advance for completing the survey.
>
> From: pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us [mailto:pharmwaste-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us
> ] On Behalf Of Rita Wong
> Sent: Friday, July 08, 2011 7:40 PM
> To: pharmwaste at lists.dep.state.fl.us
> Subject: [Pharmwaste] short article: A Solution to Pharmaceutical
> Pollution?
>
> 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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