Medications in Rivers
By: Kira Miner
Updated: January 11, 2009
An increasing amount of drug residue is finding its way into our rivers and streams; a result of people flushing unwanted or outdated medications down the toilet. We know of a High School class that's trying to clean things up.
Pontiac, Illinois is a couple hours south of Chicago.
Kids there want you to think before flushing your old medicine.
"We do know that right now there are a lot of pharmaceuticals in our water supply, and we know that it is impacting organisms," states one of the students.
Increasingly, medicines are getting past water treatment plants and into our drinking water.
Government scientists have found pharmaceuticals in 80 percent of the waterways they test.
Right now, the only technology available to get rid of pharmaceuticals is either to reclaim them or use them up.
Reclaiming them is exactly what the Illinois High Schoolers are doing.
Their program has gained national recognition.
It's called the Prescription Drug Disposal Program, or P2D2.
People drop off unused drugs at participating pharmacies, then they're shipped to an incinerator where they're turned back into energy.
What started as a school project has quickly spread throughout central Illinois.
