Do you have unwanted or expired medications laying around your house and you don’t know how to safely dispose of them? I got you! Today I’m talking about Drug Take-Back receptacles and where you can find a receptacle to safely dispose of any unwanted or expired medications.
To dispose of unused or expired medications, patients often flush them down the toilet, pour them down the drain, throw them in trash, or worse! Unfortunately, the end result is damage to our environment, drug diversion (sharing a prescription drug from whom it was prescribed to another person for illicit use), and drug abuse.
How to Safely Dispose of Unwanted or Expired Medications
With three children ages 3 and under, we have a lot of little hands to keep track of during the day and keep out of trouble. We’re very careful about any medications we have in our house and we think it’s very important to keep any prescribed or over-the-counter medications locked up in boxes so the kids can’t get to them.
We’re also very careful about any medications we need to dispose of and we feel that properly disposing of any unwanted or expired medications is very important as well.
We properly dispose of any unwanted or expired medications because we want the environment to be clean for our children in the future, but we are also aware that improperly disposing of unwanted or expired medications in the trash can lead to accidental poisonings (for curious children or pets) or drug overdoses.
Prescription and non-prescription drug take back receptacles are the best way to safely dispose of unwanted or expired medicines. All medications dropped off at these locations are destroyed.
Please do not flush or throw away unwanted or expired medications.
Why? For both environmental as well as public safety reasons. I didn’t know any of this until fairly recently, so please don’t feel bad if you’ve recently flushed or thrown away any unwanted or expired medications.
Environmental Reasons for Not Throwing Away or Flushing Medications
Medications that are flushed or poured down the drain can end up polluting local natural waters. Wastewater treatment systems and septic systems are NOT designed to remove medicinal chemicals from water and instead those pharmaceuticals can contaminate our lakes, streams, and oceans, thus impacting aquatic wildlife and ending up in our drinking water. 46 million Americans are exposed to trace amounts of narcotics in their drinking water.
As for throwing unwanted or expired medications away in the trash, if those medications make it to the landfill, they can leach into the ground soil and then it’s the same exact outcome as I explained above for the consequences of flushing – the pharmaceuticals leach into our waterways, impacting our wildlife and contaminating our drinking water.
Public Safety Reasons for Not Throwing Away Medications
Environmental reasons aside, throwing pharmaceuticals in the trash presents other hazards. Every day in America 1,000+ people are treated in emergency rooms for prescription drug abuse and an average 192 people die from drug overdoses.
I’ve thrown away my unwanted or expired medications into the trash before and I never thought about the path that those medications need to take in order to get to the landfill and just how many opportunities there are along the way for those unwanted or expired medications to get into the hands of a curious child, the mouth of a curious pet, or the hands of an adult who may abuse those drugs.
I never want a child (mine or anyone else’s) to accidentally ingest any of my unwanted or expired medications. I never want a pet (mine or anyone else’s) to accidentally get into any of my unwanted or expired medications. And I never want an adult to overdose on any prescription drugs that they inadvertently obtained from me because I failed to safely dispose of them.
And that’s why I’ll protect my community by safely disposing of all my unwanted or expired medications into a Drug Take-Back receptacle.
Drug Take-Back receptacles are easy to find and easy to use. If you’re looking for one in a grocery store, be sure to look near or inside the store’s pharmacy. I located the kiosk nearest me inside my local grocery store’s pharmacy.
When I tried to use the secure kiosk to dispose of my unwanted or expired medication, I couldn’t open the drop-box because it was locked. If this also happens to you, don’t worry, simply inform the pharmacist – he or she has the key! They lock the boxes every night (that’s how secure they are!) and if you’re the first person using it in the morning, they may simply just need to know that you want to use it and it needs to be unlocked.
Be sure to check and see what is and what is not accepted at your secure kiosk. The Drug Take-Back receptacle near me accepts unused or expired prescription medication (including Schedule II-V controlled substances), unused or expired over over-the-counter medication, and pet medication. I could check and see what is accepted both online when I looked up the location via my zip code and the printed instructions right on top of the receptacle.
The LifeInCheck Consumer Drug Take-Back receptacle near me does NOT accept Schedule I controlled substances, illegal drugs, needles, inhalers, thermometers, aerosol cans, or lotions/liquids.
