Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Replacement Toilet Lids and Seats - Don't flush your medication down the toilet -This Old Toilet 650-483-1139

Image result for prescription bottles empty in toilets

This Saturday, October 26, is National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, a chance to get rid of unwanted, unused and expired medication.

The Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) is reminding people that they should take their medications back through one of these events, rather than flushing medication down the toilet.

Why not?
“People always used to tell everyone to just flush your medication, because when you flush something you think, ‘Oh, it just goes away.’ But you don’t realize where it goes,” said Jenn Elting of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District.

Elting said wastewater treatment plants can remove a lot of things during the treatment process, including flushable wipes, which shouldn’t be flushed in the first place.

However, “we cannot remove medication from the wastewater,” Elting said. “So it goes through the treatment process and ultimately it does go back out into Lake Erie.”

Lake Erie is also the water supply for many drinking water plants, which can’t remove all the pharmaceuticals from the water during their treatment processes. That means medication and other compounds can end up in the water we drink.

“It’s definitely important that you take responsibility for the products and the things and the waste that you’re generating on your own,” Elting said. “So you definitely don’t want to flush prescription medications.”

She added that people also shouldn’t flush paper towels, fats and greases or “anything that can harm not only the sewer system but can harm your own personal plumbing as well.”

Compounds found in the water
Dr. Jen Mou is a researcher and associate professor at Kent State. She spoke to News 5 in late August about her research on PPCPs, or pharmaceutical and personal care products, that end up in the water we drink. That includes not only prescription and over-the-counter medications, but also products such as bug spray and sunscreen.

Her research centered on four different water treatment plants and searched for different compounds that end up in the raw water supply or source water.




She noted that there are different ways in which these compounds can enter the water.


“Because humans use different kinds of medicine, just through our digestive system there will still be a lot of residues that will be released through our feces and urines into the toilet,” Mou said.

She said throwing medication in the trash or down the toilet could also result in pharmaceuticals getting into the water, as well as surface runoff from farm animals’ excrement.

Mou described the issue as an “emerging concern.”

“They may not have immediate impact to human or wildlife health,” Mou said. “However, we do not know the long-term, chronic impact of those low-concentration compounds in the water.”


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Wednesday, October 23, 2019

Replacement Toilet Lids and Seats - Three new arrests in the case of the stolen gold toilet -This Old Toilet 650-483-1139

Image result for gold toilet

Police investigating the theft of a solid gold toilet from a stately home in the UK made three arrests Wednesday.

"A 35-year-old man, a 34-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman, all from Oxford, were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to commit a burglary," Thames Valley Police said in a statement. All three remain in police custody.

The fully functioning toilet is a piece of art made entirely from 18-karat gold that was installed in Blenheim Palace, England as part of an exhibition by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan.

Police have been investigating its theft since it was stolen on September 14 and previously made two arrests.

A 66-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of burglary before being released on bail, and a 35-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to burgle and was released under investigation.

The fully functioning solid gold toilet, made by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was stolen on September 14.
The fully functioning solid gold toilet, made by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, was stolen on September 14. Credit: WILLIAM EDWARDS/Getty Images


In early October, police released CCTV images of a vehicle they believe was involved in the theft at the palace, which is open to tourists.

And details of a reward of up to £100,000 ($124,000) for the return of the artwork were released.

Philip Austin from Fine Art Specie Adjusters (FASA), the palace's insurance company, told CNN that a reward of up to £100,000 would be paid if specific conditions were met.

First, the item must be safely returned; second, there must have been an arrest as part of the investigation.

"We have to be very careful that we don't pay the villains," he said.
Back in August, in an interview with the UK's Times newspaper, Edward Spencer-Churchill, the current Duke of Marlborough's half-brother and founder of the Blenheim Art Foundation, dismissed the possibility that the toilet could be stolen.

"It's not going to be the easiest thing to nick," Spencer-Churchill said. "Firstly, it's plumbed in and secondly, a potential thief will have no idea who last used the toilet or what they ate. So no, I don't plan to be guarding it."
by Jack Guy
http://www.thisoldtoilet.com