New Water Policy and Practice Issue 4, Number 1, Fall 2017 | Page 75

Pharmaceutical usage in the context of demographic change
Although the general population will shrink from 2021, we can assume an
age-related continual growth in drugs. If over 60-year-olds today account for 64
percent of consumption, in 2045 they will consume 71 percent of the total quantity
of medicines used. Even taking a conservative growth prognosis, the growth in
medicinal drugs will pass the 40 percent mark by 2045.
Effects on the aquatic environment
Medicinal drugs find their way into the aquatic environment in many ways.
Whereas veterinary medicines are discharged into waters in a predominantly dif-
fuse manner, human medicines directly reach communal wastewaters through hu-
man excretion or improper disposal via the toilet or the drain. There is currently a
broad need for research into the environmental risks of medicinal drug residues.
Individual studies, however, confirm the damaging consequences of higher con-
centrations of the active ingredients of particular drugs on the health of individual
animal species. Although there is currently no danger to human drinking water,
the rising quantities of medicinal drugs in circulation should prompt us to protect
the aquatic living environment and raw water resources as a whole. In view of the
rapid growth which is predicted for the future, this problem is only just beginning.
Figure 2: Age- and gender-specific usage of prescribed medicine
73