ScienceToday has just published report on pharmaceuticals seeping into our water. Worth a read. According to the WQA, (luckily) good catalytic carbon like we employ in the UltraStream is sufficient to block them. It’s not the first warning; another report here discussed it on September 9 posting the idea that all new drugs should be formulated to ‘decay’ to a safe standard in contact with water. (Good luck with that one!). Back in ……. another report said both prescription and illegal drugs such as morphine, cocaine and oxycodone have been found in surface waters in Canadian rivers. In Sweden, a report tells us of high levels of the anti-inflammatory substance diclofenac are released from wastewater plants. And in August researchers reported on their study of areas along rural and urban parts of the Alafia River, in Hillsborough County, near Tampa, Florida. They found 17 pharmaceuticals. Another Swedish report talked about a drug that is commonly used to treat anxiety in humans and which regularly finds its way into surface waters through wastewater effluence, shown to reduce mortality rates in fish. (Which seem good but apparently throws out the whole ecosystem they live in!) Yet another one reported anxiety-moderating drugs that reach waterways via wastewater creating fearless and asocial fish that eat more quickly than normal. (The new Piranha in a pond near you?)
There’s no doubt of the need for a comprehensive water contaminant removal system going FAR beyond the ‘big box’ carbon filter.