Disposing of Medication
I’m getting settled into my new city and finding great things here that I will be writing about. But today I wanted to talk about something that has been on my mind for awhile, and truthfully I’m quite scared by it.
Back in about early February I read this article about how you should never flush medication (prescription or over-the-counter) down the toilet. The basic idea is that all this stuff that you flush down the toilet is not being treated at sewage waste treatment facilities. That means it is entering the environment, including streams, lakes, etc.. There are also tons of studies that show how our drugs are affecting marine life. There are fish are becoming sterile because of some of the drugs that have entered the water they live in.
Then if you remember, in March was all the news about medications in our drinking water. This was followed up that it was also in bottled water. So it isn’t just marine life, but now it has become full circle and is in the water we drink. As I said, this really scares me.
So what can I (we) do? That same article at Earth 911 talks about take-back programs at local pharmacies. I checked at my local Rite-aid back in February and asked the pharmacist what the best way was to dispose of medications. He said to flush it. Sad. Well since then, there was all the news covering our drinking water in March, and now there are tons of resources on proper disposal.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy (I found it through the EPA), has some very clear instructions. They say to take unused, unneeded, or expired prescription drugs out of their original containers and throw them in the trash in an empty can or sealable bag to further ensure drugs are not diverted into the water system. They do have an exceptions list, so please check out their website.
Also with the popularity of this topic, there are now several regional take-back programs that I’ve found with some searching online. These were in cities like Seattle, Omaha, and several places in Canada. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any in Cleveland, Philadelphia, or Phoenix. But keep your eyes open, they might be coming soon to your area. If not, reference the Office of National Drug Control Policy instructions to dispose of your prescription and over-the-counter drugs.
Tags: environment, green
August 24th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
There are also several websites that will hook you up with people who need your old prescriptions. Some of them even are run by pharmacists - basically you mail them to the web site pharmacist, and they dispense them to people who have a legitimate prescription but can’t afford the meds.
Note: This is probably not legal, especially for some heavy duty pain killer type meds. But it beats wasting them.
September 1st, 2008 at 8:17 pm
Wow Nathan, while it does take in mind the whole thought process of putting to good use items that aren’t being used, at the same time that’s scary. It really goes to show, if there is something you have and don’t want, there is someone else that could use or want it. Thanks for the info!