> mentions none of the treatment plants filter
> out pharm. Are there methods to do that?
Yes, it can be done, but it is not cheap, and the throughput is low if you
want all the drugs out.
First, you'd run a reverse osmosis filter, to get the heavy molecules, which
should remove the bulk of the drugs, but then you'd need a
granular-activated carbon membrane, and a slow flow rate to get the smaller,
lighter molecules out.
Might be easier to run a distillation rig with periodic flushing of the
evaporation tray to wash out the accumulated build-up. But stills gum up,
rust out, and are generally a maintenance nightmare, many long-range sailors
have given up on them altogether (the hubris of cheap PLBs and
Sat-messengers).
The "estrogens" are pretty big, so any one approach alone should remove them
(Estradiol 272.382 g/mol, Estrone 270.366 g/mol, Estriol 288.38 g/mol). By
comparison, water is 18 g/mol.
But cheer up - most of the drugs in the waste stream are bound to be
anti-depressants, in which case you may ALREADY BE cheered up, come to think
of it.
In retrospect, I think that everyone owes Dr. Strangelove's Air Force
Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper an apology - he appears to be correct about
water purity being an issue.
But the fluoride in drinking water is also often fretted about by
beekeepers, while bees exposed to significant fluoride don't seem to mind:
http://www.fluorideresearch.org/213/files/FJ1988_v21_n3_p113-120.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/n5y8ry9
And Jerry Bromenshenk used bees as never-needs-winding environmental
monitors for fluoride:
"Monitoring Fluoride with Honey Bees in the Upper Snake River Plain of
Idaho"
(Bromenshenk, Cronn, Nugent)
Journal of Environmental Quality 01/1996; 25(4).
DOI: 10.2134/jeq1996.00472425002500040031x
No mention was made in Jerry's paper of the maximum honey fluoride
percentage, or if the honey from that area could be sold as the best-tasting
toothpaste ever.
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