The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has organized another pharmaceutical take-back event on Saturday, April 30 between 10am and 2pm in locations across the United States. The DEA website allows you to type in your zip code and find the locations nearest to you. There are locations in Brooklyn and other NYC boroughs—more will be added to the database until the day of the event.The amount of pharmaceuticals currently in use has become an environmental problem, because, like everything else, sooner or later the drugs turn into waste products. Trace elements of a wide variety of drugs including antibiotics, anti-depressants and sex hormones have been found in lakes and rivers as well as numerous municipal water supplies. In an effort to mitigate this problem, pharmaceutical take-back events have been organized to properly collect and dispose of left-over medications so they do not migrate into the environment.
This is not a reason to switch to bottled water, much of which
comes from municipal water supplies. Our drinking water is carefully monitored. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires hundreds of tests each month on municipal water supplies, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates bottled water, requires only one test per week. New York City is blessed with an exceptionally good water supply—let’s do what we can to keep it
that way.
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