Sucharita Bhattacharyya¹* and Anwesh Bhowmick²

¹Department of Applied Science and Humanities, Guru Nanak Institute of Technology, India
²Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technology, Birla Institute of Technology, India

*Corresponding Author: Sucharita Bhattacharyya, Department of Applied Science and Humanities, Guru Nanak Institute of Technology, India.

Received: October 20, 2021; Published: November 16, 2021

Abstract

In this ever-improving world of medical science, medicative waste materials, in general termed as pharmaceutical wastes are piled up in alarming levels and demands quick disposal, otherwise ignorance and negligence of their continual chemical decomposition will put the lives of the entire world at stake. Just like any other common waste management processes, the topic of pharmaceutical waste management has really turned out to be one of the most significant and emerging areas of discussion in recent times. Thanks to the active role of print media as well as the electronic and social media to raise the general awareness on this issue and pharmacists (both budding and professional) all over the world have come to the forefront, so far as taking the initiatives of aiding and educating common people about safe drug disposal is concerned. Accordingly, in this work some daily-used drugs like aspirin (an analgesic, antipyretic drug), lidocaine (a general anaesthetic drug) etc. are studied to learn about their positive impacts in living bodies as well as the negative effect on the environment i.e., when they can be regarded as “pharmaceutical waste”, considering various perspectives. As an example, for smooth, painless operations lidocaine is a boon, but if not stored at temperatures below 25°C they degenerate and lose their therapeutic activity and literally become waste. So, at the end, general as well as drug-specific neutralization methodologies are discussed in detail to make this world a pharmaceutical waste-free space.

Keywords: Pharmaceutical Waste; Quick Disposal; Chemical Decomposition; Daily-used Drugs; Therapeutic Activity; Neutralization

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Citation

Citation: Sucharita Bhattacharyya and Anwesh Bhowmick. “Pharmaceutical Waste Management - A Study". Acta Scientific Pharmaceutical Sciences 5.12 (2020): 63-68.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Sucharita Bhattacharyya and Anwesh Bhowmick. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.