FLUSHED DRUGS POLLUTE WATER

Nurse Lorilee Olmsted Has Heard the Same Order Too Many Times When It
Comes to Disposing of Unused Drugs in the Many Nursing Homes and
Hospitals Where She Has Worked.

"'Flush them,' that's what they tell me," Olmsted said. "It happens
so frequently. . . . It is greatly disturbing to me."

Olmsted is disturbed because she knows those drugs don't just go down
the drain. They go into the sewer system and eventually contaminate
our lakes, streams and drinking water.

And she is frustrated because for Wisconsin residents there are few
safe ways to get rid of expired or unused drugs.

For hospitals and other health-care institutions the disposal of
drugs is a confusing and expensive process.

"The problem is that the regulatory environment isn't set up in the
right way to allow people to do the right thing environmentally. It's
an infuriating bureaucratic quagmire," said Mark Borchardt, a
Marshfield Clinic water researcher.

Health-care workers and environmental advocates say:

Drugs flushed down the toilet or thrown into a landfill can end up in
our groundwater.

Laws for health-care institutions on how to dispose of drugs are
confusing and outdated. Enforcement of these laws is nearly nonexistent.

No laws regulate household disposal of drugs.

It's estimated that as many as 80 percent of the state's hospitals
and nursing homes do not have adequate pharmaceutical disposal
programs in place.

And because of federal Drug Enforcement Administration rules, any
collection of narcotics for disposal requires that a law enforcement
officer be present at every step of the process. This makes it very
difficult for communities to hold household pharmaceutical collection
events and impossible to set up permanent drug disposal sites.

The restrictive DEA rules are why some hospitals - such as UW
Hospital and Meriter in Madison - find it easier to just flush
narcotics down the toilet.

For residents and others trying to sift through it all, good advice
is difficult to come by - even from pharmacies and government agencies.

On its Web site, for example, Walgreen Drug Stores still advises
people to dispose of drugs by flushing them.

Even regulatory agencies such as the state Department of Natural
Resources are perplexed by how to control improper disposal of unused
pharmaceuticals by individuals and institutions because there often
isn't a single, simple answer, according to Joanie Burns, section
chief for the agency's hazardous waste prevention and management unit.

"It's a really, really difficult issue for us," Burns said, "because
we don't have an ideal solution."

But the issue is beginning to get more attention, according to Burns,
and the agency has recently held three workshops for state hospitals
on how to implement the difficult disposal rules.