Uma proposta de educação ambiental para coleta de resíduos de medicamentos em drogarias do município de Santa Maria - RS

Abstract

The evolution of the mankind enables improvements and well being in the quality of life, however, a lot of these advances end to generate environmental impact. The medicines were developed to relieve the pain and the symptoms of many diseases, but with the incorrect disposal, they start to generate disorders in public health and in the environment. This present study evaluated the knowledge of pharmacists and population of Santa Maria about the impact of the disposal of medicines in the environment, verifying the presence of collectors in drugstores and the procedure of disposal by the population. It was used the qualitative research, besides the descriptive and explanatory, evolving the bibliographical survey and interviews. We verified that the professionals and the population recognize the environmental risks resulting from the incorrect disposal, though they do not perform the collection (drugstores) nor the adequate disposal (population) of these residues. The population is acquiring environmental awareness, but a lot of things must be done to reverse attitudes as the disposal in the garbage, sink and toilet. The pharmacists have to orientate the population about the act, exercising one of their attributions to the health improvement, that is, to orientate about the correct disposal of medicines. Therefore, it is necessary to make campaigns to divulgate the risks evolved in the inadequate disposal of medicines and stimulate the population to discard in the collectors present in the drugstores.