A new study has found that the American health care sector accounts for 8 percent of the country’s carbon dioxide emissions.

The study, conducted by University of Chicago researchers and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, measured how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases the health care industries (hospitals, scientific research, pharmaceuticals, etc) released. It is the first-of-its-kind calculation of health care’s carbon footprint.

Using the environmental input-output life cycle assessment (EIOLCA) model of environmental impact developed by the Green Design Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University, the researchers were able to determine exactly how much health care activities directly and indirectly affected the environment.

Not surprisingly, hospitals release the largest amount of carbon emissions, mainly due to their high energy needs for temperature control, ventilation and lighting in large and often aging and poorly structured hospital buildings. But interestingly, the second largest contributor of carbon emissions was the pharmaceutical industry, primarily because of associated manufacturing and transportation.

While the researchers realize that hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are more concerned with treating people than the environment, they hope that the results of this study will encourage them to look at ways of providing health care and researching and developing drugs in a more environmentally friendly way.

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At first, it seems extremely eco-friendly, the biannual Compost Giveaway Events every fall and spring in San Francisco hosted by the city’s Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC).

Residents are offered free compost to produce soil for community and school gardens and local backyards. It’s the green and organic thing to do.

The problem is the mulch isn’t made of food scraps and manure but a combination of toxic sewage sludge from waste water treatment, green waste, yard waste and wood chips.

What’s in sewage sludge? Stuff that’s foul and harmful to people and other living things.

The True Food Network, which is leading a petition drive against the latest giveaway argues sewage sludge is shown by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to contain heavy metals, pathogens, pharmaceuticals, PCB’s, flame retardants and endocrine disruptors. In addition, organic pollutants are present in sludge samples, such as polybrominated diphenal ethers (PMDEs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, DDT degradation products, chlordadanes, synthetic musk products, triclosan and tributytin.

“Residents may be led to believe that the city’s sludge compost is organic,” says the network. “The USDA’s National Organic Program’s (NOP) regulations, however, strictly forbid the use of sewage sludge as a fertilizer or soil amendment, no matter if it is composted or otherwise treated. This compost is by no means organic.”

The Center for Food Safety and the Resource Institute for Low Entropy Systems filed a petition with Gavin Newsom, San Francisco’s Mayor and Ed Harrington, General Manager of SFPUC, asking them to immediately and permanently suspend the sewage sludge compost giveaways for the fall. Residents are asked to join the letter writing campaign to protect the health of its gardeners.

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Last year, it was widely reported that drinking water in many major metropolitan areas was contaminated with trace amounts of drugs. All types of drugs – everything from over-the-counter pain medications to antidepressants to prescription medication for high blood pressure and heart disease.

The drugs we ingest pass right through our bodies and are expelled in our urine. These drugs aren’t removed in the water treatment process and the water is released into our rivers and lakes, which serve as our water supply.

The chatter eventually died down with assurances that the amounts were so small they couldn’t possibly impact human health. But how do we know that for certain? The truth is, we don’t know enough about the effects of prolonged exposure and possible interactions between all the different drugs we ingest in our drinking water.

Drugs given to animals enter our water supply in the same way. Not only does this practice contaminate the water with steroids, hormones, and antibiotics, but because antibiotics are overused (given to healthy animals to prevent disease and increase growth) there is a high likelihood of deadly, drug-resistant infections that can be passed onto humans.

Of particular concern is a staph infection called MSRA which is killing more than 18,000 Americans a year and, as was recently reported, is showing up on hog farms.

Another recent story outlines how river fish in urban areas are contaminated with trace amounts of drugs, simply from living in the rivers through which our treated sewage flows. River fish in Chicago, Dallas, Phoenix, Philadelphia and Orlando were all tested and compared to fish from a river in New Mexico into which no treated sewage flows.

The fish were tested for 24 different pharmaceuticals and 12 chemicals found in personal care products. Trace concentrations of seven drugs were found in fish at all five of the urban river sites. None were found in the fish from New Mexico.

These issues are part and parcel of the same problem. The drugs we take, dump down the sink or toilet or give to animals end up in the water supply because there is no “away”. When we throw things away or flush our toilets, our stuff has to go somewhere.

Last month, Congress introduced a bill called the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act. It aims to prohibit farmers from feeding antibiotics to healthy farm animals. This is great and long overdue, but it won’t entirely solve our drug problem.

We must also shift our thinking. Planners, policy makers, corporations and individuals all need to remember that we are connected to one another and all things are part of the web of nature. Everything we do has some effect downstream. We must all begin to think less linearly and more holistically about our actions.

In the meantime, you can start by finding out more about the antibiotics issue here.

Image: publik15