With over 3000 pharmaceuticals approved for use in the US, frequently detected compounds include steroids, antibiotics, antidepressants, anti-inflammatories and painkillers, and hormones.

Septic systems and most municipal wastewater treatment facilities are not designed to remove pharmaceutical chemicals from the water. Although different treatment techniques are successful at removing some of the chemicals, current treatment technology cannot completely remove all pharmaceutical chemicals at the necessary scale. Compounding this issue is the use of sewage sludge as fertilizer on agricultural lands. The presence of pharmaceutical chemicals in this sludge, also known as biosolids, is also of concern. When spread on agricultural lands, these medicines may soak into soil and be taken up by plants or wash off into local bodies of water.

At home and on farms, many medicines enter the water system unintentionally, like those that enter when they are excreted or rinsed off the skin. A second–and fully preventable–pathway from homes and farms is improper disposal of unwanted or expired medicine. Medicine that is thrown in the trash can end up in a landfill where, as it breaks down, it mixes with water and either leaches out into surrounding soils and bodies of water or is pumped to wastewater treatment plants. In either case, this medicine can end up in local streams and rivers.

Reducing pharmaceutical pollution in our waterways will require multiple interventions including wastewater treatment improvements, changes to drug prescription practices and drug formulation, and easier access to proper disposal methods, like take back programs. Proper disposal of human and animal medicines ensures that the medicine in your homes and farms don’t become part of a pollution pathway.