(Prescription Drug) National Take Back Initiative

[Snackcakes66]

http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/takeback/
One can take thier old, unused px and OTC drugs for safe disposal and to keep them off the street and out of the hands of kids.
Another link, http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/health&id=7687598, young man lost due to a drug interaction from someone else's medication.

 

[Missy70Texas]

I read about this in another news publication; I always flush mine down the toilet when they are outdated, is this wrong??

 

[Belinda]

I used to flush mine also, until I found how high the levels of drugs in our water systems is. Part of that is caused by flushing drugs down the toilet. Now I don't know what to do with them.

 

[Filly]

Here are some tips of how one should dispose of their old medications. This also goes for OTC med's as well.




http://cancer.about.com/od/treatmentoptions/a/drugdisposal.htm

You supposedly can take them to the pharmacy. Hmmmmmm. Don't know about that one. Throw them in the trash with things like grabage and cat litter. O.K. then. There's some more here.

Never did I think about this as we always flushed as well. Then my grandpop had Fentanyl patches. That gave my poor Opa something to do for a little while. He wrapped them up like nobody's business before putting them in the trash.

My friend is a drug/alcohol counselor and told me horror stories of addicts going through the hospital's hazardous waste looking for discarded Fentanyl patches.

 

[SunnieRN]

I read about this in another news publication; I always flush mine down the toilet when they are outdated, is this wrong??

Unfortunately, as posted by Belinda, there are levels of drugs, all drugs, in our water supplies. There are narcotics, psychographics and OTC med levels in our water. Scary!

Hospice nurses gather all drugs, put them in a plastic (ziplock type) bag. They then add water, until the pills dissolve. They then throw them in the garbage. Not saying that is the best way, but it does render them useless, since they are dissolved.

 

[Belinda]

My question is - if we put them in the trash, whether dissolved or not, won't they still find their way into our water system through run-off? Does anybody know about this?

 

[tk71texas]

i read in houston they collected 1 1/2 tons of stuff....wowsa!!!

 

[bessie]

Here are some tips of how one should dispose of their old medications. This also goes for OTC med's as well.




http://cancer.about.com/od/treatmentoptions/a/drugdisposal.htm

You supposedly can take them to the pharmacy. Hmmmmmm. Don't know about that one. Throw them in the trash with things like grabage and cat litter. O.K. then. There's some more here.

Never did I think about this as we always flushed as well. Then my grandpop had Fentanyl patches. That gave my poor Opa something to do for a little while. He wrapped them up like nobody's business before putting them in the trash.

My friend is a drug/alcohol counselor and told me horror stories of addicts going through the hospital's hazardous waste looking for discarded Fentanyl patches.

After my first husband died, I asked our pharmacist if I should bring his unused meds to the pharmacy for disposal because it was a large amount. He looked at me like I was from Mars. So much for that. I flushed them. Now I empty the bottles into a bag with leftovers from the fridge, meat scraps or coffee grinds. This is not the safest method because the chemicals will eventually make their way into the groundwater. But what to do?

The pharmaceutical companies make oodles and oodles of money mass producing and mass distributing drugs, so many of which are unnecessary for the condition they're prescribed. Now all these pills are cluttering up the planet (a million-and-a-half tons in Houston? Wow.) I say we put pressure on Pharma to come up with a viable recycling plan for their nasty drugs.