How do I discard old drugs?

[Alex Franke]

I have some old oxycod, antibiotics, antipsychotics, hypertension, and other meds that I need to get rid of (don't worry -- not all were for me! ). It doesn't seem right to just flush them or put them in the disposal. It also doesn't seem quite right to just toss them in the trash. So they've been collecting for quite a while.

But now with the kids in the house, I just want to get rid of them entirely.

Anyone know the preferred method of discarding old meds?

[Wandere]

Oh sure, feel free to send them to my way...we recycle

ok ok, really...take them to a pharmacist for disposal, they'll take care of it.

Dark street corners in bad parts of town are another avenue some take of course. <--- note winky for the hypersensitive

-Rob

[newbie2wood]

Best thing is to flush it down the toilet. Drugs have limited shelf lives.

If you give them to a pharmacist, he or she may resell them. 99.9 percent of the pharmacists are honest but some will sell expired drugs without hesitation.
________
Children wellbutrin

[Jeffrey Schronce]

My mailing address is 123 Main Street . . . . don't worry about the antibiotics, anti psychotics, hypertension, etc . . . just anything ending in codon or cet. LOL!

All kidding aside, the pharmacy is a good choice, though they will likely either trash them or send them down the sink.

[cgallery]

I believe I've read recent articles that you SHOULD NOT dispose in the toilet, as the current concern is drugs can contaminate water bodies and tables. I imagine the likelyhood is small, but that is what they say. They prefer you throw them in the garbage, I believe.

It would be nice if there was a way to donate old medications but the problem is possible tampering and proper identification.

[Ed62]

This is a good question. I'm not sure putting them in the garbage would be a good idea either. Animals and birds then become victims if they ingest them. I'd say it would be a good idea to ask your pharmacist or a doctor (which we have in house ).

Ed

[LinuxRandal]

I believe I've read recent articles that you SHOULD NOT dispose in the toilet, as the current concern is drugs can contaminate water bodies and tables. I imagine the likelyhood is small, but that is what they say. They prefer you throw them in the garbage, I believe.

It would be nice if there was a way to donate old medications but the problem is possible tampering and proper identification.

Our water department said in its water polution booklet, not to put them down the toilet. Our local police, and medical personal, say to flush them (we did have a pharmacist that was cutting down on peoples prescriptions to make more money and that skewed things even more).

The trash is open to animals and anyone digging in it once it hits the curb.

[Daryl]

Take them to a pharmacy or your local hospital, they don't just flush them, they use a service to properly dispose of them, usually by incineration. We had a fellow arrested around here recently, who was a courior for a disposal service, he was going thru the trash and pulling out the opiates and reselling.

[smorris]

We take ours to our doctor for him to dispose of. The one thing I found that nobody but our doctor will accept is a Epi-pen.

[Tarhead]

We get a plastic grocery bag, put in 5-6 cups of clean cat litter and a enough water to make a peanut butter consistency; mix in the pills. The moisture renders the pills and capsules useless. The cat litter make them unappetizing.

Don't flush drugs. Our normal waste treatment doesn't do much to them and they end up downstream.

[atgcpaul]

You definitely shouldn't flush them. Although the quantities might be
neglible, they will work their way into the watershed. Take them to a
pharmacy for disposal or throw them in the trash.



Prozac found in the UK water supply:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3545684.stm

[parnelli]

We get a plastic grocery bag, put in 5-6 cups of clean cat litter and a enough water to make a peanut butter consistency; mix in the pills. The moisture renders the pills and capsules useless. The cat litter make them unappetizing.

Don't flush drugs. Our normal waste treatment doesn't do much to them and they end up downstream.

This is what they now recommend doing. Mix the drugs with something gross so that nobody will want them and then dump them in with the regular trash.

You could take them somewhere else, but it's my experience that lots of physician's offices will just dump drugs in the regular trash instead of the biohazard trash anyway.

[ironhat]

This is what they now recommend doing. Mix the drugs with something gross so that nobody will want them and then dump them in with the regular trash.

I hadn't thought of mixing them with cat litter but I can see how that would work. I have always emptied them from the containers to make ID more difficult and pitched them into the kitchen waste - something juicy and ooky. I also do not dispose of the containers in the same container as the pills. There's no use helping with the ID!! I was horrified to learn that med are showing up in our water supplies from flushing them. Can you imagine how much must be going down the drain for this to be traceable even if it is ppm or ppb??

[Jeffrey Schronce]

I was horrified to learn that med are showing up in our water supplies from flushing them. Can you imagine how much must be going down the drain for this to be traceable even if it is ppm or ppb??

You actually have to be careful disposing of the bottles at all if they have refills. Dumpster divers will go through the trash, take the bottle and go get the refills. There was a lot of folks pulling that trick in the Revco/CVS/Rite Aid trash cans out back when I was growing up. Hundreds of bottles per day thrown away. They would take the bottles that have refills and go to town.

As far as the prozac in the water thing in the UK, I just have to believe that their was manufacturing in the area that caused that.

[LCHIEN]

I believe I've read recent articles that you SHOULD NOT dispose in the toilet, as the current concern is drugs can contaminate water bodies and tables. I imagine the likelyhood is small, but that is what they say. They prefer you throw them in the garbage, I believe.

It would be nice if there was a way to donate old medications but the problem is possible tampering and proper identification.

I think the water pollution contamination is getting to be a big issue. There was a recent article that said they could sample the sewer water effluent and tell the magnitude of the drug problem and which illegal drugs were in the greatest use. The article emphasized the drug monitoring aspect but I have also seem articles where the chemicals like estrogen compounds were affecting the marine life.