New Study Prompts Maine to Explore Limits to Landfilling Medical Waste

Date: February 8, 2010

Source: News Room

A new study detecting common prescription drugs in the leachate from municipal waste landfills in Maine could aid efforts by supporters of state legislation to create industry-funded drug takeback programs. The study by the Maine DEP appears to be the first to show pharmaceutical waste in landfill leachate that could turn up in wastewater treatment plants, albeit in tiny amounts and could bolster activists' claims that existing approaches to drug disposal put the environment at risk.

Maine lawmakers are considering a first-of-its-kind bill that would force drug makers to create and pay for a program to collect unused prescription and over-the-counter drugs from consumers and dispose of them as hazardous waste, as is done in Europe and several Canadian provinces. "People need a way to properly dispose of their drugs, and they're not getting it right now," Mark Hyland, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality's Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management, told the AP. The state bill, LD 821, passed out of committee Jan. 20 and is awaiting further action. Maine is among more than a half a dozen states considering a "take-back" bill for medications. Not surprisingly, the bill is opposed by the drug industry lobby group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), which acknowledges the test results but points out that the amounts are too miniscule to warrant the expense of such a program.

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