When we read that one of the great environmental challenges of our time is the state of our rivers, our imagination travels directly to the fecal waterindustrial pollution or, lately, microplastics. In what we don’t usually think It’s in the medications.
But the problem is real and the European Union is determined to solve it.
How can medications ‘contaminate’? Drugs (whether for medical or veterinary use) have a very long life after consumption. And, inevitably, a good part of the medications end up being expelled from the body and entering wastewater.
From there, despite the efforts of treatment systems, they reach rivers, lakes and seas.
An increasingly solid scientific consensus. Although it is difficult to get a complete idea of the impact of this type of pollution on the environment, the investigations that are appearing They make it clear that it is very far from being an anecdote. In fact, at least 631 pharmaceutical substances (human or veterinary) have been found in more than 71 countries on five continents. Many of them, at levels higher than those considered safe.
In 2022, the CSIC analyzed 258 rivers and, after cataloging the Manzanares River as “the most contaminated by drugs in Europe”, warned that we were in the face of “a global threat to the environment and human health.”
“Global threat (…) to human health”? Are we not exaggerating? In the case of antibiotics, to use an example we are all familiar with, this is clearly seen. We have been warning for years that the abuse of these medications leads to the emergence of multiresistant bacteria. That’s true on the consumption part, yes; but also in the part in which enormous quantities of them are dumped into nature every year (with the problems that this causes for ecosystems and the risks that it poses).
Why is this news now? Because the European Union wants to take action on the matter and, as Oriol Güell explainsis introducing a whole new battery of measures in the renewed Directive on Urban Wastewater Treatment.
The goal is to “reduce the compounds discharged into the environment by more than 80%”; the environment, the introduction of a whole series of “quaternary treatments” (ozone, activated carbon, new membranes, etc…) in the treatment systems. The problem? that the EU wants them to pay the affected industries: above all, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.
An idea that the sector has not liked. As expected, the application of the “polluter pays” principle in these terms has not pleased the sectors involved. Above all, because of the costs. According to the employers’ associations of both sectors, the application of the European directive would lead to an increase of about 500 million euros in Spain alone.
And, beyond the expected conflicts between companies and administration, it is true that the movement is paradoxical. Not because it is not reasonable to charge the costs of water treatment to those who produce them; but because just a couple of years ago, Europe announced its intention to bet on having drug factories on the continent (and thus reduce its dependence on international supply lines).
Towards a culture of responsible drug use. Be that as it may, in the end we always return to the same thing: the drug industry is heading straight into a very complex crisis in which health, economic, environmental and cultural issues intermingle so as not to lead us to a dead end.
One in which we risk our health, the future and our lives.
Image | manuel mv | Joshua Goge