Today’s green news:
Drinking viagra? With a water crisis predicted as serious offshoot of climate change — a UN tome released on Wednesday, the World Water Development Report, found that “water stress, amplified by climate change, will pose a mounting security challenge”, says AP — we’re going to need to get water wise. Recycling water is just one means of addressing the problem.
But in the pill-popping Western world, the question of what happens when we drink trace amounts of other people’s pharmaceutical waste hasn’t yet been resolved.
Surveys of US waterways have “so far have identified the presence of over 80 compounds” from painkillers and birth control pills to erectile dysfunction tablets, reports Seed Magazine. In conclusion: “By now it’s clear that if it’s a pill you can pop, it’s probably ending up in the environment.”
The public is uneasy. So are researchers — even if they don’t yet understand the ramifications.
According to Josh Braun, writing for Seed, many scientists are somewhat placated by the fact that the pharma residue exists in only trace amounts:
A 2005 joint USGS-CDC study which found the anti-seizure medication carbamazepine in a stream, for instance, noted that a person would have to drink two liters of stream water daily for 70 years to get even a tenth of a therapeutic dose of the medication.
But that is not the full story. As Braun notes, “even if no particular drug is present in high enough concentration to have adverse effects by itself, the interaction between the veritable cocktail of medications present at subtherapeutic levels may add up to pack a punch.”
The jury’s still out.
And in other green news…
Not slick. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has declared Moreton Island, Bribie Island and southern parts of the Sunshine Coast disaster zones after a massive oil spill. Sixty kilometres of coastline is covered in the slick, which came from the Pacific Adventurer after it was damaged earlier this week in rough seas whipped up by cyclone Hamish. Up to 100,000 litres of heavy fuel oil leaked into the ocean from the cargo ship. — ABC News
Does this eco-friendly stuff really clean like old-fashioned chemicals? Slate investigates. Key quote: “The big question, of course, is what level of certainty you require when it comes to cleanliness.”
4 Comments
Gimme some of that sweet, sweet estrogen.
The ABC Catalyst program last Thursday had a segment on recycled water use. They did not address this problem but it has been discussed in the comments.
I am confused as there does not seem to be any definitive scientific studies on the effectiveness of modern filtration systems.
All I do know is that any water you drink is likely to have passed through the gut of one kind of animal or creature quite recently.
Just remember that any scientific “discovery” or “theory” can, and is, only be tested by another scientist!
The fact is that there are some “scientists” that are now considered to be “exspurts” – the list of “exspurts” includes the Australian Dental Association and the Australian Medical Association, the remaining “exspurt scientists” are usually on the payroll!
Those “real independent scientists” are poo pooed by the establishment.
One fact of science is that if you are not sure or you are uncertain – go back and test it again. When talking about recycled effluent you have to ask the scientists – “what EXACTLY are you testing for? Scientists tested sea water in the Antartic – after finding 600+ contaminants they ran out of money and knowledge to test any further!
It is the chemicals/drugs/toxic wastes that they don’t know how to test for that should be our biggest worry!