Pharmaceutical drop-off locations limit possibility of water supply contamination

---

Tweet

Flushing them or dumping them in the trash heap can lead to health hazards, but pharmaceutical disposal for students and residents has been made easier and cleaner with a new program from the Ingham County Health Department.

Last April, the department received $15,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency to host nine pharmaceuticals collections in Ingham, Eaton and Clinton counties in an effort to limit the entrance of pharmaceuticals into the water supply.

Two Ingham County collections already have been completed and the final one is set for April 25 at the Meridian Township Hall, 5151 Marsh Road, in Okemos.

Pharmaceutical contamination in drinking water made headlines last March when several major cities saw traces of prescriptions in the water.

“People can bring in unwanted pharmaceuticals for free and (the pharmaceuticals) will be incinerated,” said Martha Knorek, solid waste coordinator for the Ingham County Health Department.

In March, unspecified drugs were found in Detroit’s drinking water amid news that 24 major metropolitan cities’ drinking water had tested positive for pharmaceuticals.

The Lansing area hasn’t experienced problems with pharmaceutical contamination, but pharmaceutical traces are difficult to test for, said Daryl Motes, an operations specialist who works with the wastewater treatment plant in Leslie, Mich.

“The tests we run here are just basic wastewater tests,” Motes said. “If something does hit, we can figure out where it is coming from.”

Pharmaceuticals enter into the water supply by being flushed down the toilet or through basic excretion, Robert McCann, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, said. In the past, it was common practice to flush old pharmaceuticals, but as the public becomes more conscious of the problems, newer drug disposal policies are being adopted.

“Fortunately it hasn’t been a big problem yet … because we are finding things like antibiotics, and especially when children are exposed, that can lead to undesirable effects,” McCann said.

McCann said the state is in the process of adopting drop-off locations similar to Ingham County’s, but residents should put the caps back on their pharmaceutical bottles, tape them shut and place them in a sealed plastic bag for safe disposal.

“We need to start looking at things more carefully, and we need to start addressing that,” McCann said.

---