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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">Dear Pretreatment & Pharmwaste folks,</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">This excellent NPR story references quite a few studies of emerging contaminants in aquatic and other organisms.
</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">It also promotes drug takeback programs as, "<span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">One major way to prevent
pharmaceuticals from getting into waterways..."</span>!</span></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">https://www.npr.org/2019/05/02/719600999/traces-of-cocaine-pesticides-detected-in-u-k-shrimp
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">Story e<span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">xcerpts
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in" dir="ltr"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif"><font color="#000000">"Pharmaceuticals and personal care products and pesticides and these types of illicit drugs have been detected
in surface waters all over the world, because when we use them, our waste isn't always treated properly, and so they come out in rivers and streams," Emma Rosi, an aquatic ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies who has done similar studies, tells
NPR...</font></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in" dir="ltr"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif"><font color="#000000">"What's very worrying is we don't know what the effects are, the ecological effects."</font></span></font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">Rosi concluded in a paper published last year that more than 60 pharmaceutical compounds could be detected in aquatic invertebrates and spiders in streams
near Melbourne, Australia. In the Nature Communications study, her team also found that animals higher up the food chain like platypuses and gray trout "could in principle be exposed to certain drugs in their diets at levels comparable (up to 50%) to prescribed
human doses."<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">The mix of pharmaceutical traces found in water sources is worrying for the same reason that doctors are careful about not mixing certain drugs in humans,
Rosi says — because they could have adverse reactions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">"I've done research in lab settings where we have exposed aquatic organisms like invertebrates to various types of pharmaceuticals," Rosi adds, saying that
they have found that the compounds can disrupt growth rates and have other negative effects.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma",sans-serif">One major way to prevent pharmaceuticals from getting into waterways is to properly dispose of them through a drug takeback program, rather than flushing them
down the toilet. The EPA has guidelines for disposing of medications <font color="#0000ff">
here</font>, and you can find a public disposal location for pharmaceuticals <font color="#0000ff">
here</font>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><font size="+0"><span lang="en-US"><font size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; COLOR: black"></span></font> </p>
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<div><font size="2"><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; COLOR: black">Ed Gottlieb
<br>
Chair, Tompkins County Coalition for Safe Medication Disposal<br>
Industrial Pretreatment Coordinator<br>
Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Facility<br>
525 3<sup>rd</sup> Street<br>
Ithaca, NY 14850<br>
</span><span style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; FONT-FAMILY: "Tahoma","sans-serif"; COLOR: blue"><a href="tel:(607)%20273-8381" target="_blank"><font color="#0000ff">(607) 273-8381</font></a><br>
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