On November 20 and 21, the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Concepción, in collaboration with Redfarma, will carry out a collection operation for Household Pharmaceutical Waste (RFD) in the city center.
This initiative, promoted by students of the career of Chemistry and Pharmacy, seeks to raise awareness in the community about the importance of properly disposing of expired medications, since they risk not achieving their therapeutic effectiveness or causing health problems. In addition to promoting the correct disposal of these products, the operation aims to make visible a problem that has not yet been resolved in Chile: the lack of a management protocol for RFD, unlike hospital waste, which does have specific regulations.
This situation is worrying, since some medications have the capacity to become emerging contaminants (EC), which can be found in wastewater and affect both ecosystems and human health. “It is a bit curious, because medicines were created to have a beneficial effect on our lives, but unfortunately if we do not dispose of them in an appropriate way, these same medicines can harm us, they can affect our health. Not only human health, but animal health, the ecosystem. Planetary health, finally,” says the Dr. in toxicology and academic at the Faculty of Pharmacy, Claudio Müller Ramírez.
Because household pharmaceutical waste is constantly dumped into the sewer or household garbage, it enters the environment and is characterized by its persistence, bioconcentration, bioaccumulation, biomagnification and environmental mobility.
In a letter to the Pan American Health Journal, academics Dr. Berta Schulz Bañares, Claudio Müller and Dr. Tamara Sandoval Quijada, They underscore the urgent need to implement mitigation strategies, such as RFD take-back programs, which have been successfully implemented in countries such as Ghana, New Zealand, Ireland and the United States.
“What we would have to do is generate an articulation on the part of the government, the State, to have a parallel with the supreme decrees associated with Waste from Health Care Establishments (REAS). All of this is regulated with a safe final disposition. We should have the same for household pharmaceutical waste and it is a global challenge. There are individualized initiatives such as in Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Portugal, that in some way seek to raise awareness and then generate hard data like the ones we generate through these campaigns,” says Dr. Müller.
The University of Concepción, through this action, reaffirms its commitment to the community and to the protection of the environment, while raising awareness about the importance of correct disposal of expired medications. “This year is already the third campaign. We have information associated with the characterization of the household pharmaceutical waste that we receive here in Concepción. We can deliver this information to the competent authorities so that they can use it and generate strategies or public policies that deal with this problem that negatively affects people’s health,” declares the academic.
According to data from the first RFD collection campaign, 24 kilos of waste were collected, considering solid, semi-liquid formulations and aerosols, which mainly belonged to antibiotics (8.4 kilos), antidiabetics (0.5 kilos) and non-inflammatory anti-inflammatory analgesics. steroids (0.3 kilos).
Date, time and place of the activity:
November 20: Independence Square, Concepción. 12:00-3:00 p.m.
November 21: Front of the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Concepción. 12:00-3:00 p.m.
