A new study shows troubling levels of pharmaceutical pollution in the St. Lawrence River and its largest tributaries, especially near and downstream of urban areas. Some of the compounds detected even pose a moderate-to-high risk to aquatic organisms when there's chronic exposure.
    • 🍆💦🍌🍆💦🍌@lemmy.world
      0·
      6 months ago

      Wtf are “biodegradable meds”?

      It’s more like we need to spend money figuring out better ways to treat sewage to remove substances of concern. That includes medicine but also stuff like PFAS and microplastics.

      • Showroom7561@lemmy.ca
        0·
        6 months ago

        “biodegradable meds”

        Hypothetically, they would break down when they enter sewers.

        I’m not saying they exist, I’m saying big pharma can most certainly invent them with their billions of extra profits they make per year.

        It’s more like we need to spend money figuring out better ways to treat sewage to remove substances of concern. That includes medicine but also stuff like PFAS and microplastics.

        I don’t disagree, but this puts the onus on taxpayers and municipal water treatment plants, rather than industry.

        Industry should be paying for the mess created by the products they manufacturer and sell.

        • 🍆💦🍌🍆💦🍌@lemmy.world
          0·
          6 months ago

          We already tax profits from pharmaceutical companies and invest in research into these exact things. Which sounds like exactly what you want? They’re even installing new waste treatment equipment to help solve the problem in Montreal.

          You make it sound like it’s trivial to invent new drugs that are more biodegradable to replace existing ones, but it really really isn’t.