Pharmaceutical waste management

 

Pharmaceutical waste can result from many activities and locations in a healthcare facility. If you have a compounding pharmacy on site, it generates drug waste. Pharmaceutical waste management  Anywhere medicines are employed can be the site of spills, half-used bottles, IV equipment with residual medicine on it. Waste drugs or pharmaceuticals can pose a special treatment and management challenge. Small quantities at households can often be thrown away in the municipal waste stream (perhaps with some makeshift method of denaturing or making the drugs undesirable to interlopers). Large quantities kept at pharmacies, distribution centers, hospitals, etc. must be managed to minimize the risk of release or to exposure to workers and the public. Pharmaceuticals encompass a huge range of chemical compounds and they have all sorts of different effects on humans, animals, and plants. You need to be careful with all of them. Even aspirin should not be flushed down the toilet. Some medicines, such as those used to treat cancer, are outright dangerous (genotoxic or cytotoxic) and healthcare workers have to be protected from exposure.The discovery of a variety of pharmaceuticals in surface, ground, and drinking waters around the country is raising concerns about the potentially adverse environmental consequences of these contaminants. Minute concentrations of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors, some of which are pharmaceuticals, are having detrimental effects on aquatic species and possibly on human health and development. The consistent increase in the use of potent pharmaceuticals, driven by both drug development and our aging population, is creating a corresponding increase in the amount of pharmaceutical waste generated.