Water Tainted with Prescription Drugs

One of the biggest problems facing one in five Americans is the problem of drug tainted water. It is estimated that over 271,000,000 pounds of legal pharmaceuticals are disposed in our drinking water every year. These drugs can range from anything like blood thinners, codeine, antibiotics and mood enhancers. This does not include over the counter drugs or illegal drugs that are flushed away so they can’t be used for evidence. Drug tainted water is a growing problem not only in the United States but in the rest of the world too. This problem is reducing the supply of potable water all over the world. To compound the problem population of the world keeps increasing and makes the probable water supply to each individual less.

It isn’t that the manufacturers of these legal drugs are doing anything illegal under US law and in other countries their actions are totally legal. That’s after report 2008 indicating that this fast quantity of pharmaceutical dumping include such nasty drugs and antibiotics, anticonvulsents, mod stabilizers and sex hormones That are affecting the lives of 51 million Americans. Another risk that these Americans face from this situation is the abnormal growth of cells due to drinking this water. When asked about the situation many of the different drug companies who were disposing of their waste legally were unable to state what the results would be.

This It is one of many waste streams that are entering our water supply from various sources. At the beginning of the environmental movement one of the major streams was industrial waste. A great deal of this waste has been eliminated one way or another mainly by placing various restrictions on the offending industries. Most of these industries are still allowed to discharge hazardous waste with a permit, but usually after they have taken steps to remediate the waste stream. This still leaves a great deal of waste that is entering our water system because of runoff from agricultural land, and runoff from streets, roads, construction sites and parking lots. A special type of rainwater runoff comes off on the roofs of factories. Mining is another type of runoff that we get it very often these are the source of heavy metals and sulfuric acid.

This type of pollution can and does affect our water supply, but also presents several interesting possibilities for investment. Supply of potable water is often the responsibility of publicly traded water companies. There are other companies that produce various products or services to further reduce the amount of pollution that gets into our drinking supply. Many of these companies are also publicly traded also. Of particular interest are those companies that are producing supplies and material for the water infrastructure. Another area of interest is companies making purification material such as filters or molecular seives. Another closely related line of products are construction machinery and materials that are used to upgrade or extend the infrastructure of the water supply.

References

Investing in water, Goldworld, http://www.goldworld.com/articles/investing-water-companies/395

Moneyweek, How to profit from the world water crisis, http://www.moneyweek.com/investments/commodities/how-to-profit-from-the-worlds-water-crisis.aspx