That helps us get our breath back when we are struggling（ 努力） to breathe, when we are struggling to breathe, when we are struggling to breathe, when we are struggling to breathe. Medicines, the very（ 恰好的） things you think help you, the things that ease（缓和） our aches and pains, that protect us from deadly（致命的） infection（感染）, that help us get our breath back when we are struggling to breathe. Our medicines, always good for us. I'm Anna and I've been a pharmacist（药剂师） for around 20 years. And the thing I love about pharmacy is it's like a big puzzle（难题）. I look at people's medicines and I work（使工作） out if they're okay. They're okay for your kidneys（[解剖] 肾脏）.

  Are there any interactions（相互作用）? Are they causing side effects? I'm an extra layer of protection（保护）, often working behind the scenes to protect patients from harm（伤害）. And when a patient first comes into hospital, one of the first questions I ask them is, "Are you on any medicines at home?" Inevitably（ 不可避免地）, they say yes. More often than not, I'm presented with a carrier bag full of medication（药物）, maybe two, balanced（平衡的） on their bedside table. But every time I see this, my heart sinks.

  Because this is a problem for patients, our health service and for the planet. It's been difficult to miss the impacts of climate change these last few years. Heat waves being linked to increased mortality. Surgeries（外科） cancelled（取消） due to flooding. Lime（石灰） disease on the rise. That's just here in the UK, a broad（宽的） toxic（有毒的） smoke from wildfires and people being displaced（取代） from their homes.

  Sometimes though, this seems a little distant（在远处的） to me, something that other people have more power than I do to change. The fossil（化石） fuel companies, big corporations（公司） transporting goods all around the world. But even so, I try and do something. Do you have a bag of plastic bags under the sink to recycle or a reusable cup? Do you sometimes wonder how much of a difference this really makes? What about at work?

  What's the impact of health care? And what can I do to reduce it? Well, the NHS accounts（说明） for about 4% of the UK carbon（碳） footprint（脚印）. That's enormous. It's equivalent（等价物） to the carbon（碳） emissions（(光、热等的)散发） of a small country, somewhere like Sri Lanka. What about medicines though?

  If I were to draw the NHS carbon footprint into a pie chart, medicines account for 25%, a quarter of the NHS carbon footprint just from medicines. That's about 1% of the UK carbon footprint just from medicines. Now, I'll always remember Bill. He presented me with a fishing tackle（ 滑车） box, a three tiered fishing tackle box. Hundreds of tablets popped（ 发出“砰”的一声） out into it. All those brightly coloured capsules, it looked like lots of different coloured sweets.

  Must have taken him hours. But when I saw it, my heart sank. Because he had tablets that he wasn't taking anymore, the communication systems weren't talking to each other, and he was still getting them at home. He had boxes and boxes of laxatives on repeat, kept getting them month after month. You never know when you're going to need a whole load（负载） of laxatives. And he was quite grumpy with me because he said he'd tried to take them back to the pharmacy and they'd said they couldn't be reused.

  He thought that was ridiculous（可笑的）. Seems a bit ridiculous, doesn't it? But the fact is, medicines, even if they're in their original packaging, can't be reused. We don't know if you've popped your busker pen in the microwave or the cats looked at the top of your insulin vial. But when I saw these piles（堆） of medicines, my heart sank further because it seemed like such a waste. A waste financially（ 财政上） for the NHS.

  Collections of medicines like this are a problem for patients and the planet. Taking lots of medicines increases the risk of side effects and can decrease（减少） compliance（依从）.