Antibiotics are only useful so long as bacteria do not become resistant to their effects. Hospital sewage systems discharge substantial quantities of antibiotics into the environment. Bacteria exposed to antibiotics in sewage sludge or water have an opportunity to develop resistance. The Solution is Not Dilution Hospitals and the health care industry are the major sources of these problems, especially antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs. Health Care Without Harm, a large national coalition of environmental and health groups, might consider tackling this difficult but important problem.
Sewage sludge provides a major pathway by which drugs enter the environment.
Until the drug problem is understood and controlled, it provides a solid scientific rationale for labeling sewage sludge a dangerous soil amendment, the use of which should be forbidden. For a long time, people have worried that the world was going to run out of natural resources. It is now apparent that we have run out of places to throw things away.