March 25th, 2009
Environmental drug abuse
We’re drugging our environment and other creatures who live in it. A recent study of rivers containing “treated” wastewater found fish swimming around with human drugs and scent compounds in their tissue. Doped fish.
So some of those legal drugs we take end up passing through our current sewer plants and into the open environment. The research also found scent chemicals from various cosmetics. Time for a green tech solution to these drug solutions.
There’ll be deniers who claim this is some natural process, or doesn’t matter. We can’t blame people for this problem. This study, however, has an aspect that makes it pretty clear what’s going on. Five test areas are near urban sewage outfalls, a sixth was in the pristine southwestern desert far from any population center. There the fish contained none of the chemicals being detected.
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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