Drugs

Prescription drugs are common and widespread in this continent and across the globe.

Venlafaxine—one of the most prescribed antidepressants—features among the top five most-consumed drugs by Canadians 25–64 years of age. In 2015, 80 million prescriptions were filled out for metformin, a common diabetes medication, in the United States alone.

Once we excrete those compounds through urine, they enter into our wastewater. Wastewater treatment plants do a fantastic job of removing things like phosphorus and nitrogen that, in high concentrations, can cause problems like harmful algal blooms. These plants, however, were never designed to remove small amounts of complex chemicals like pharmaceuticals.

Here at IISD-ELA, we want to discover what happens when those medications are broken down within the human body, excreted, and end up back in the environment—all with the goal of determining how we can change policy to reduce impacts on freshwater health.