Please don't put unused tablets in the potty/commode to kill bacteria

Recently while watching a science video from a research institute, another video appeared in my feed beside it. This one 's about a few household tips. I wouldn't watch them usually but the  pic on the video attracted my attention. Somebody was putting a few tablets in a commode. I wondered what it was about and watched it. 

And I request you not to do the same - although I gave the link here to give evidence of what I said - because this popularizes this harmful video.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaqDpXP_2SI

The tip the maker of this video gave was dangerous!

She asked people to put unused medicines like antibiotics in the commode/ potty to kill bacteria and clean the toilet. And to my horror several people in the comments section said they would follow it. 

I told them not to do that and requested the video maker to remove this tip as this 's dangerous. The video maker argued with me saying that people use plastic, toilet cleaners which are harmful chemicals too. She asked me why I was raising a hue and cry about a small issue like this.

Then she turned off the comments! 

I got annoyed and reported about the video. 

Now, you too might be wondering why I was so particular about making this tip  removed.  Because I am a Microbiologist and worried about antibiotic resistance!

 Do you know that large amounts of chemicals, including antibiotics, are released into the environment through wastewater?

When Indian researchers  looked into the release of wastewater from Indian pharmaceutical production facilities estimated that processed water from one plant contained 45 kg of ciprofloxacin per day (in comparison, the total daily consumption in Sweden is 9 kg). Downstream from that plant the sediments contained high amounts of antibiotics and, as a natural consequence, antibiotic resistant bacteria (1).

Wastewater with high antibiotic content is problematic for at least two reasons: resistance selection including dispersal, and proper function of waste processing.

This was demonstrated in a study where researchers collected samples from a sewage treatment plant receiving wastewater from a pharmaceutical factory. Samples were taken from different stages of the treatment process, and viable bacteria were cultured. 93 strains of bacteria were isolated and investigated further. The strains were identified and their susceptibility to 39 antibiotics from 12 classes was determined with disc diffusion methodology. The presence of integrons, mobile elements capable of transferring resistance between bacteria, was also determined.

The study found that a high degree of antibiotic resistance was found in the isolated strains, including:

• All strains were resistant to at least 5 antibiotics,
• 86% were resistant to 20 or more antibiotics and
• 53% of the strains were resistant to 29 or more antibiotics.
• The most common type of resistance was to two β-lactam antibiotics, ampicillin and mecillinam, both occurring in 98% of the strains, respectively.
• 62% of the strains were resistant to ciprofloxacin.
• A mobile element was found in 95% of the isolates.

A prior study had revealed alarmingly high rates of antibiotic resistance in river sediments downstream of the plant, and therefore indicated that the presence of the highly resistant bacteria was not confined within the treatment plant (1).

This antibiotic resistance through sewage contamination has been reported all over the world and I read several research papers on it ( I am giving just a few citations here as evidence but there are hundreds of reports like this: 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10).

Wastewater containing high levels of antibiotics is a serious environmental problem. Techniques which effectively remove antibiotics and other chemicals need to be deployed before release to wastewater treatment plants, and measure to better control dispersal of antibiotic resistance through processed water or remaining sludge urgently need to be required and put in place.

But this is hardly done in India.

Imagine if everybody uses unused antibiotics to kill the bacteria in their commodes and all this sewage water  containing antibiotics becomes responsible for making  more resistant microbes? 

This will increase antibiotic resistance when the antibiotics reach sewage. When the same resistant bacteria infects people, you can't cure the infection and this may lead to death. People will die because of this thoughtless tip! We are fighting this very menace  of antibiotic resistance.

And a few housewives are giving these harmful tips on  popular social media and undoing all that we are doing. 

Don't we get annoyed! Like hell we will!

Footnotes:

1. https://www.reactgroup.org/news-and-views/news-and-opinions/year-20...

2. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-020-0050-1

3. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2021.632850/full

4. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2021.632850/full

5. L.J. Zhou et al.  

• Excretion masses and environmental occurrence of antibiotics in typical swine and dairy cattle farms in China

  Sci. Total Environ.(2013)

  6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004313540600...

  7. https://www.intechopen.com/chapters/53627

  8. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/jeph/2020/2796365/

  9. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004565351500...

  10. APHA, Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, American Public Health Association, Washington, DC, USA, 2017.