It's disgusting to think about, but this is an important connection for everyone to make: The drugs you ingest not only get flushed through your system, but if you flush them down the toilet, they also get flushed through the sewer system, into our waterways and through our treatment plants.

The problem is, neither the sewage treatment process nor the drinking-water treatment process extracts drugs from the water. That means we unintentionally drink prescriptions that aren't ours. By the time they reach the tap, most drugs are not in significant amounts, but some are active even in small amounts.

This week until Saturday, Oct. 29, Operation Medicine Drop Take Back has been collecting and safely destroying unwanted and unused drugs. To find a drop-off location near you, go to this page at the organization's website.

Here's more on our drinking water's drug problem from the Catawba Riverkeeper, David Merryman:

Proper disposal of your leftover and expired medicines helps protect your drinking water supply and your local wildlife. Not only do these drugs play a role in unintentional poisonings and deaths every year, they are causing male fish to grow female parts. They have also contaminated every drinking water supply tested in the U.S. No, this is not a Halloween trick, you can watch a news story about drugs in public water supplies and turning male fish female.

Check out that news story here:

Yes, that's right: male fish are turning into female fish at an alarming rate around the world. Why? Hormones. Where are the hormones coming from? Birth control pills, estrogen replacement pills, etc. And that's just one example.

Something else you water-drinkers might find interesting is the Catawba Riverkeeper's new interactive "Map of Pollution Events." Find out if there have been any near you here.