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AUGUST 2017 CHEBEAGUE ISLAND COUNCIL CALENDAR
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We will clean and service most appliances, including gas stoves, gas fireplaces,
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hung systems, floor models, and—of course—all furnaces and boiler systems.
LnL Enterprises
Home/Office 207-809-0373
Linda Larrabee
General Manager
*
207-272-4487
Tim Larrabee
State-Licensed Master
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207-844-3450
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Office Hours: 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. • Monday through Friday
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Wellness Matters: Safe Drug Disposal
by Jenny Hackel
W
e used to believe that it was better to flush
medicine you no longer needed down the toilet, to
keep it from the reach of children and pets or being
shared inappropriately with others. Yet, a 2002 study
by the U.S. Geological Service found groundwater
contaminated with 82 different prescription drugs
owing to flushing of old medications or landfill
runoff resulting from disposal of drugs in regular
trash. In the 15 years since that study, prescription
use has increased, while funding for environmental
protection has decreased. The Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) has found antibiotics,
hormones, and other drugs in both municipal
water and rural groundwater systems that are
potentially dangerous to the community’s health.
Drug contaminants in the water—even in bottled or
filtered water—include chemicals that lower blood
pressure and heart rate, affect the brain and nervous
system, and alter the reproductive hormones.
While the average person thinks of antibiotics as
drugs that make people well, when they are not
specifically tailored to cure a particular infection, they
can alter the body’s natural defense mechanisms and
make a person sick, allergic, or resistant to the drugs
should an infection arise. Similarly, hormones that
treat a deficiency in one person may cause cancer in
another. The best advice is to talk with your health
care provider about the safest way to treat your
health conditions with the fewest number of drugs
at the lowest doses, never share your prescriptions
drugs with others, and always safely dispose of drugs
no longer needed. The EPA details a safer disposal
method
on their website.
Better yet, you can bring
the drugs you no longer need to a drug takeback
programcosponsoredby the EPAandMainepharmacy
associations. The next collection on Chebeague will
be
Saturday August 19 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 pm.
at the Public Safety Building
. Last year, several trash
bags full of unwanted prescriptions were kept out of
Chebeague groundwater with this program, making
our groundwater safer not only for humans but also
for the entire ecosystem of the island.