Drug waste management: A brief review

Abstract

Water is a vehicle through which different types of waste are transported. It comes from different productive activities, in such a way that rivers, canals, lagoons and seas are contaminated with them. This has been a known situation in Mexico for the last 200 years. Nowadays we are generating new unregulated pollutants, present in reused or treated waters. The presence of drug residues represents a continuous entry into aquifers that causes health risks and negative effects on aquatic environments. Due to their chemical stability, these substances cannot be eliminated through the residual water treatment processes. This type of water is reused in the production of drinking water or irrigation water in agricultural areas, exposing human and animal health to toxicological effects by this type of chemical substances. A research was conducted for reports about the contamination of waste drugs in different types of water, residual, non-residual and agricultural soils, in an international and national scale, from 1984 to 2018. It was concluded that up to this moment there is no international or national norm, suitable for how the disposition of this type of waste should be made, in order to minimize adverse effects on the environment and human activities.