Waste prescription drugs – still blaming patients?
Patients have been asked to help cut medicines waste, which costs Bristol £3.5 million a year. Patients and healthcare professionals in Bristol are being asked to help stop medicines going […]
wastewater
“Guidance” from Water UK for healthcare waste water discharges
Water UK has updated and republished its “guidance” regarding healthcare waste water discharges that might apply to healthcare premises and might no doubt be extrapolated to healthcare waste treatment facilities […]
Accidental death from ‘Mummy’s sweets’
A 16 month old toddler has died after overdosing on iron tablets he thought were ‘Mummy’s sweets’ after his sister climbed onto the bathroom sink to reach them. When children are […]
Medical /clinical waste rules should be harmonised
Health Care Without Harm is calling for EU rules for waste medicines to be harmonised and strengthened, after a survey of six member states revealed wide discrepancy in collection practices. Under […]
Dealing with pharmaceutical residues
Dealing with waste pharmaceuticals is currently something of a hot issue, for wards and clinics, for patients in their own home, for manufacturers and pharmacists, and others, and for all of those […]
Prescription drug residues in natural water sources
The world is rightly concerned about the presence of prescription drugs in natural water sources. Everywhere you look, in wastewater discharges from hospitals, in lakes and rivers, and in drinking water, […]
Dengue fever
Dengue fever is a nasty business. Caused by a virus transmitted by Aedes mosquitos, most people with Dengue recover without any lasting problems. The mortality rate is around 1–5% even […]
Community drug waste collections
Once again, we can report of the success of one of the very many drug waste take-back schemes operating in communities in the US. The most recent have occurred in […]
Pharmaceutical residues from clinical wastes?
Regulators and those who follow on their every word continue to be exercised by the question of pharmaceutical residues from clinical wastes. Of course, bulk pharmaceutical wastes from the pharmacy department or […]
National drug take-back day
The US is to hold its fifth national drug take-back day on Saturday April 27, from 10 am to 2 pm. Organised by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), this is […]
Reducing antibiotic resistance – better prescribing for less waste
It is an imperative that every possible step is made to reduce antibiotic resistance though in reality the genie is out of the bottle and, as resistance rates are already high and […]
Pharmaceuticals and illicit drugs in aquatic systems
There is much regulatory concern about the presence of even trace pharmaceutical residues in wastewater, and thereby in the aquatic environment. Regrettably, this has in some part manifest itself as […]
MRSA in water supply
Bit of a panic, mainly in the press at present, about an interesting paper in Environmental Health Perspectives entitled “Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) Detected at Four U.S. Wastewater Treatment Plants”. As […]
Is that an elephant in the room?
Revision to legislation in the US State of New Jersey will prohibit health care institutions from discharging prescription medications into sewer or septic systems. How that will happen is pretty straightforward […]
Clean-up of hospital wastewater
The need to clean up hospital wastewater is now well-recognised. It is rich in the pharmaceutical residues excreted by the patient population, together with a diversity of chemicals such as cleaning […]
Pfizer offer pharma disposal guide
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer have offered a drug disposal guide but for registered customers only. Pfizer is the first pharmaceutical company to make this resource available to health care professionals to […]
4 billion prescriptions annually
People in the United States took more prescription drugs than ever last year, with the number of prescriptions increasing from 3.99 billion (with a cost of $308.6 billion) in 2010 to […]
Is the US prescription drug takeback law the right approach?
GreenBiz.com is questioning the suitability of new US laws that will require pharmaceutical manufacturers to make a financial contribution to disposal of their products. “Officials in Alameda County, California are breaking new […]
Drug residues escape wastewater treatments
By analyzing wastewaters for a range of urinary biomarkers, it is possible to reliably detect drug abuse patterns in cities. The findings of a comparative study of illegal drug consumption in […]
Anibiotics in the environment
We have discussed on the Clinical Waste Discussion Forum, over many years, the problem of drug residues in the environment. It is an issue in which we stand very much […]
Wastewater pharma contamination promotes antibiotic resistant bacteria
ScienceDaily reports that large quantities of antibiotic-resistant bacteria enter the environment via municipal – and especially hospital – wastewater streams. Although wastewater treatment plants reduce the total number of bacteria, the most hazardous […]
Antibiotic exposure and environmental contamination
The head of the World Health Organisation has recently warned about antibiotic resistance caused by prodigal use of drugs on factory farms: “Greater quantities of antibiotics are used in healthy animals […]
NHS Isle of Wight drug waste reduction
Drug wastage across the NHS is a massive and costly problem that has a profound impact on environmental contamination and disposal practice. We have discussed the problem previously on the […]
Water conservation
There is substantial evidence to suggest that the majority of the UK will face drought conditions in the year ahead. Even though the water companies have at last done something about […]
Hospitals dumping drugs down the drain?
It’s a serious issue and the evidence coming from properly conducted research shows that we need to address as a matter of some urgency the escape of pharmaceutical agents into […]
$155m medical waste improvement project kicks off in Hanoi
A US$155 million hospital waste water treatment project was kicked off yesterday by the Ministry of Health and financed by the World Bank in Ha Noi, Vietnam. The project aims to […]
What made Milwaukee famous?
Well, the song was good, but the Schlitz beer that made Milwaukee famous was undoubtedly preferable to a day spent on Milwaukees Lake Michigan beaches! Environmental groups report, once again, substantial […]
Community pharma waste collection schemes
We make no apology for repeating on the Clinical Waste Discussion Forum, yet again, the news of community hazardous household waste collections schemes operating in the US. Although there are some […]
Prescription drug round-up collects over 250,000 pills
It’s easy done, and very effective. Though there is rapidly increasing concern about teh presence of pharmaceutical residues in wastewater, and thereby in natural waters, little seems to be done […]
Farming pharmaceuticals
The use of drugs in farm animals is strictly controlled to prevent the appearance of drug residues in foods for human consumption. Quite rightly, that does not eliminate the use […]