Ban Toxic Pharmaceutical Waste and Protect Marine Life

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Sponsor: Free The Ocean

Pharmaceuticals dumped into our water are warping marine life and poisoning ecosystems—call for change before the damage becomes irreversible.

Ban Toxic Pharmaceutical Waste and Protect Marine Life

Across the country—and around the world—pharmaceutical drugs are ending up where they don’t belong: in rivers, lakes, and oceans. Anti-anxiety medications, painkillers, and antidepressants are contaminating water systems and changing how fish behave, migrate, and survive. These chemicals are potent enough to treat the human brain. Now they’re disrupting entire ecosystems1.

Drugged Fish Are Acting Strangely—And Dying Because of It

Young salmon exposed to clobazam, a common anti-anxiety drug, have been observed taking bolder risks and separating from their schools. This behavior makes them easier targets for predators and threatens their long-term survival2. While drugged fish may move faster through dams, the cost is high: they reach the sea alone, more vulnerable, and with altered instincts that may prevent successful reproduction3.

What Starts in Water Spreads Through the Food Chain

It’s not just fish. These chemicals flow through food chains and affect other species—including land animals and humans. Drinking water drawn from contaminated sources can carry trace pharmaceuticals, which wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove4. No current U.S. drinking water regulation covers pharmaceutical pollutants5.

Scientists have detected nearly 1,000 different pharmaceutical compounds in waterways worldwide. Even the most remote ecosystems, from Arctic rivers to national parks in the U.S., show signs of contamination5. These are not isolated events. They are symptoms of a broken system—one that allows drug waste from our homes, hospitals, and factories to flow unchecked into nature.

We Need Policy, Infrastructure, and Accountability

The problem is growing. The solutions exist.

We need policies that ban the discharge of pharmaceutical waste into water systems. We need drug designs that break down safely after use. We need upgrades to wastewater treatment infrastructure and a nationwide program that keeps unused medications out of sinks and toilets. And we need accountability—from the agencies tasked with protecting our water and health.

Sign the Petition. Protect Marine Life and Public Health.

This is a crisis we can stop. But we need your voice to do it.

Sign the petition now. Demand that the EPA, FDA, and HHS take action to ban pharmaceutical pollution in our waterways—for the health of our oceans, our communities, and the generations to come.

More on this issue:

  1. Rebecca Dzombak, The New York Times (10 Apr 2025), "A Sign Your Fish Might Be on Drugs: Risky Behavior."
  2. Jack Brand and Michael Bertram, The Conversation (10 Apr 2025), "Drug pollution in water is making salmon take more risks – new research."
  3. Jonathan Lambert, NPR (14 Apr 2025), "Anxiety drugs found in rivers make salmon take more risks."
  4. Fred Schwaller, Deutsche Welle (14 Apr 2025), "Psychoactive drug pollution makes fish less risk-averse."
  5. Counterpunch Staff, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies (26 Jun 2023), "Medicine Residue Is Everywhere in Our Rivers and Lakes—and Fish Are Behaving Strangely."

The Petition

To the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS),

We, the undersigned, urge your agencies to take immediate and coordinated action to stop pharmaceutical waste from entering America’s rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. The ongoing contamination of our water systems with psychoactive drugs, antibiotics, hormones, and painkillers is threatening marine ecosystems and poses a growing risk to public health.

Recent studies have shown that even trace amounts of medications can disrupt natural behaviors in wildlife, especially fish. Anti-anxiety drugs like clobazam have been found to alter salmon migration, causing bolder behavior that increases their exposure to predators and distorts natural survival patterns. These disruptions ripple across food chains, destabilizing aquatic ecosystems and endangering biodiversity.

This is not just an environmental issue—it is a human health issue. The same compounds affecting wildlife can pass into our drinking water, contributing to antibiotic resistance and unknown long-term effects on human biology. Our wastewater systems were never designed to handle this volume and complexity of pharmaceutical contamination. Outdated infrastructure, weak regulations, and poor disposal practices have allowed this crisis to grow unchecked.

We respectfully call on your leadership to:

  1. Ban the direct discharge of pharmaceutical waste into public water systems from manufacturing sites and healthcare facilities.
  2. Require pharmaceutical companies to design greener, biodegradable drugs with minimal environmental impact.
  3. Mandate comprehensive environmental impact reviews for all new drug approvals.
  4. Fund and upgrade wastewater treatment facilities with modern filtration technologies capable of removing pharmaceutical residues.
  5. Launch a nationwide public education and take-back program to prevent the flushing of unused medications.

By enacting these changes, you will not only safeguard marine life but also protect future generations from drinking water contaminated by chemical residues. These actions will help restore ecological balance, reduce the spread of superbugs, and demonstrate a commitment to public health rooted in prevention and responsibility.

A cleaner, safer water system is possible—but only if we act now. Your leadership in banning pharmaceutical pollution will shape a healthier, more resilient future for people, wildlife, and the planet we share.

Sincerely,