Pharmaceutical products are flooding into our oceans, polluting the ecosystems there - and poisoning wildlife. New research is showing that medications like anti-anxiety pills, antidepressants, antipsychotics, and even antibiotics are filling our waterways, leading to huge effects on wildlife populations.
In some cases, it's even causing organ changes, collapse in population numbers, and localized extinction.Corporations need to start taking accountability for the pollution and resulting havoc caused by their own products. Sign the petition to demand that Pharmaceutical companies redesign their products to more easily break down in order to stop poisoning and killing off wildlife!Some of the examples researchers found included: brown trout developing an
"addiction" to methamphetamines, European perch becoming overly comfortable around deadly predators after exposure to antidepressants, fathead minnows developing anxiety, and starling birds
no longer engaging in mating rituals due to the antidepressant Prozac in sewage areas.
How do so many pharmaceutical products end up in the oceans, rivers, and streams? There are quite a few ways. One is that, during the actual drug manufacturing process, corporations aren't sufficiently treating the production waste that leaves their facilities. Another is from people flushing or throwing away unwanted medications (because much of our trash inevitably ends up in the water).
A third is from human excrement. So far,
our wastewater treatment facilities are not robust enough to properly break down these chemicals, including when those chemicals are released through our feces.
Experts say that much of this could be fixed at the manufacturing level. If corporations were to start taking responsibility for their outsized impact on the world around them, they would
recraft the lifecycle of drug manufacturing, designing the products to more easily break down and be rendered harmless after consumption.
They must also fund more advanced wastewater treatment facilities to help negate the impact of their powerful chemicals!Sign the petition to demand that we hold corporations accountable for the mess they've made! 