A comment paper published in the December 2022 issue of Lancet Plantetary Health makes the case that it is time for a systems approach to address the problem of healthcare-derived pharmaceutical pollution.
Chemical pollution is considered one of the nine planetary boundaries, and increasing evidence suggests that we are already operating outside of this, risking irreversible environmental change. Pharmaceutical chemicals are vital components of modern health care, but their contamination of global waterways is threatening environmental and human health, contributing to biodiversity loss, driving antimicrobial resistance, and jeopardising progress towards the sustainable development goals. With the global pharmaceutical market now worth more than US$1·25 trillion and continuing to grow as populations age and suffer from more chronic, non-communicable diseases, there is an urgent need to integrate pharmaceutical pollution into sustainable health-care strategies, alongside efforts to reduce carbon and plastic waste.
Fiona Adshead and Keith Moore from the Sustainable Healthcare Coalition joined a group of 30 experts who concluded that mitigating global pharmaceutical pollution is essential for achieving sustainable healthcare systems, and for helping to restore humanity back within the safe operating space of the chemical pollution planetary boundary.