And more importantly, how can you get rid of it?
By Susannah Wood

Open up the medicine cabinet and there they are: ibuprofen, out-of-date prescriptions for eczema or high blood pressure, opiods left over from your broken ankle, the birth control pills you don’t need because you want to start a family. How do you dispose of them safely? Flush them down the toilet? Stick them in the trash?

A broad-based study done in 1999 and 2000 by the United States Geological Survey found low levels of antibiotics, hormones, contraceptives, steroids, and other drugs in 80 percent of the rivers and streams tested. There are over 1,800 approved pharmaceuticals on the market and, as the population ages, we use more and more of them. In the recent past, pharmaceutical use has been growing annually at four to seven percent and that rate appears to be increasing for many drugs such as antidepressants, statins, and diabetes medications. As reported by the Centers of Disease Control in 2013, about half of all Americans were taking at least one prescription drug and 20 percent of Americans were on five prescription medications. Traces of over 150 human and veterinary drugs have even shown up in the Arctic.

For many years, scientists have been concerned about the effects of these drugs entering rivers and lakes and drinking water. While sewage treatment plants, including Norfolk’s, were never designed to filter out pharmaceuticals, treatment does remove some of these substances; but, even with the best municipal systems, small amounts still escape. We know very little about the synergistic effects on people of many years of exposure to brews of many different chemicals, but researchers have been seeing impacts on aquatic species, fish that develop eggs in their testes because of exposure to hormones in birth control pills, for example. There are also disturbing correlations between hermaphroditic amphibians and proximity to exposure.

Some drug residue, of course, makes its way through our bodies and into sewers and septic fields, but a study done 2007 in California estimated we throw out about half of the medications, both prescribed and over-the-counter, that we use. The worst thing we can do is to flush old drugs down the toilet, especially since Norfolk lies at the headwaters of three major streams. There are two sensible alternatives. Since our municipal solid waste goes to be incinerated and not into a landfill, you can dispose of drugs in the ordinary trash, but it’s important to follow these steps:

Remove or cover up your name and identifying information on the label. For pills and capsules, add a small amount of hot water to the bottle to dissolve them.

For liquids, mix them with salt, flour, charcoal, or kitty litter, but not food so animals will not eat them.

For blister packs, wrap them in layers of duct tape, then seal the container in duct tape and tuck it inside a non-transparent container and then seal that.

Note that certain chemotherapy drugs may need special treatment. Your physician or pharmacist should be able to advise you on those.

Alternatively and less work on your part, you can take medications to the Torrington Police Headquarters, which has a drug disposal bin in its foyer. It accepts narcotics, other prescribed medications, including ointments, as well as over-the-counter drugs. All will then be incinerated. The lobby is open 24 hours a day. Contrary to some information found on line, CVS and Walgreens are not able to dispose of prescription drugs.

Of course, our personal use of medications is only a small part of a much larger problem. Both the agricultural use and manufacturing of pharmaceuticals shed considerable chemical loads into our waterways. Long-term care facilities and healthcare centers are other significant sources. Many actually instruct staff to flush unwanted drugs. Although bipartisan bills aimed at telling such institutions they can no longer do so have been proposed in the Connecticut State Legislature in recent sessions, none have made it through to the governor’s desk.

For more information go to: www.ct.gov/deep/medsdisposal or Citizens Campaign for the Environment, www.citizenscampaign.org