Pet flea treatments polluting Britain's rivers

[Catherine]

Quote:You are supposed to wear gloves while administering spot-on flea treatments. You are not supposed to stroke of pet the dog or cat for a day or so (I think it's that time) You are supposed to wash hands thoroughly, never to put it on where you might inhale it, and call the doctor if you get any in eyes or mouth. Does that sound safe?

Meanwhile cats and dogs lick themselves. But we don't worry about that...

This is just one of many things that we do that are clearly dangerous. If you can't safely touch your pet after the treatment how is it safe to put it on the pet's skin. It clearly isn't safe for the environment either. Not if the chemicals are present in rivers in dangerous amounts.

The pet flea treatment chemicals should be a wake up call for our other types of "run off". Body scrubs are very dangerous for the environment. All the drugs and treatments we use are ending up in our water. Radioactive material from radiation treatments is also passing into the environment.

I live in a city on a large lake. We dump our treated waste into the lake and we take our drinking water from the same lake.
I am sure there are flea treatment chemicals in the water along with the other mix of chemicals. If we start checking lakes and rivers associated with big cities we will probably find the same problem everywhere. I don't know what we can do to fix it. First we need to take the problem seriously.