Is Our Drinking Water Spiked With A Pharmaceutical Drug Cocktail?

I have a friend who proudly announced that she recently purged her household of all chemical cleaners, medicines and conventional beauty products (including mouthwash, shampoo, facial toner, etc.) in favor of purchasing all new organic and homeopathic items.

As she spent what seemed like a good 15 minutes happily detailing all of the stuff that she poured down the drain, I thought that it was really odd that she neglected to recognize that she was still polluting our environment -- it was just all at once rather than slowly but surely throughout the months.

She told me how relieved she was that she got that junk out of her life and she told me that from now on she would be honoring Mother Nature in the best possible way that she could.

After she finished her soliloquy, I asked her where she thought all of those substances went. She paused for a long time and then responded, "Out of my house, that's where."

I gently reminded her that every single bit of cough syrup, cleansing liquid, gel, potion and lotion that she rinsed into her sink is now in our water supply -- to which she responded, "Noooooo, it's all treated. It's all purified -- there's no problem."

We went back and forth several times until she finally said that she had an appointment to get to, and that got me thinking about how so many of us don't realize that what we're rinsing down the drain will invariably end up polluting our water in some way, shape or form.

Designer and researcher Tuur Van Balen explored this idea recently with his London Biotopes project, in which he documented the properties of tap water in various regions of the city.

Did you realize that a great deal of the medicine that we consume ends up in our drinking water? Before you say that that's impossible, did you know that the vast majority of wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove pharmaceuticals?

Take a look at some of Van Balen's findings above -- while he offers a slightly humorous twist via his tongue-in-cheek descriptions, it's still easy enough to read between the lines and make any green minded individual take pause.

In addition to the three regions depicted above, he determined that water hailing from Chelsea is rich in a wide assortment of anti-depressants, whereas in the New Cross neighborhood, such substances as blood, various street drugs and gunpowder are a lot more common.

What are your thoughts? Are we really what we drink?

If it's true, how should we responsibly dispose of the contents of our medicine cabits or purge our homes of conventional chemical household liquids?