Pharmaceutical waste background

Pharmaceutical contamination in waterways comes from multiple sources, including manufacturing plants, livestock industries, and consumption. Livestock operations and runoff contribute antibiotics, caffeine, and cotinine to water systems. The agricultural industry is a major contributor, with over 80% of antibiotics sold going to livestock. Pharmaceuticals from manufacturing plants were found in high concentrations in water treatment plants, with high blood pressure medications being the most common. Multiple drugs were found in all tested plants. Let's talk about how these drugs enter our waterways in the first place. One of the obvious sources of pharmaceutical contamination in our waterways are the manufacturing plants themselves, but this isn't the only source of contamination. Livestock industries run off from animal feeding operations, and even just the consumption of these medications contribute to this issue, as not all drugs are fully processed or metabolized by the body. Antibiotics, caffeine, and cotinine, these are just a few of the pharmaceuticals found in water systems due to livestock operations and runoff. Specifically, antibiotics are a major issue when it comes to the agricultural industry and our water system. Over 80% of all antibiotics sold in the U.S. are sold to the livestock industry. These medications, just as in humans, are not fully processed and end up in the livestock waste, as well as any uneaten antibiotics that are left in the feed or water have the potential to end up finding its way into our water systems as runoff. It's not just about us, it's about how we dispose of what's left. In the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry, the most significant contributor to this issue, a study found that concentrations of active pharmaceutical ingredients, or APIs, at alarming levels in 50 large municipal water treatment plants across the U.S. The highest concentration was measured at 5,300 nanograms per liter for valzoparin, and hydrochlorothiazide, metropolol, and atenolol, which are all high blood pressure medications, were found in over 90% of the samples. And just these three medications were found in over 90% of these plants, but all of these tested plants were contaminated with multiple of the only 50 APIs tested for, out of the hundreds of APIs that exist.