© Lynn Ischay/Plain Dealer/fileAccording to a U.S. Geological Survey study dozens of compounds such as antibiotics, prescription and nonprescription pharmaceuticals, personal-care products and household and industrial chemicals were all found in trace amounts Tinkers Creek.
Next time you get up in the middle of the night to visit the bathroom, you might think about where the medications you took earlier in the evening are heading next.
Downstream is the polite answer.
More and more, biologists are finding out that traces of those in-and-out-of-body pharmaceuticals -- and dozens of other compounds, from caffeine to pseudoephedrine -- are making it through wastewater treatment plant operations and into the environment.
What that could mean in the long run, however, is not yet known.
But the U.S. Geological Survey reported in a new study Tuesday that dozens of compounds such as antibiotics, prescription and nonprescription pharmaceuticals, personal-care products and household and industrial chemicals were all found in trace amounts in June 2006 along Tinkers Creek.
