Safe Disposal of Medicine
By Meghan Hessenauer
I never really gave much thought about medicine until now. Now I need medicine. Now I am a mother and my kids take medicine. Now I study how medicine is disposed of as part of my job as an environmental scientist. And now, I know just how serious a problem unintentional poisoning can be. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 142,000 children were seen in emergency rooms in 2004 and 2005 because of medication poisonings, and more than 80 percent of those poisonings were because an unsupervised child found and consumed medications.
I used to keep my medicine in the bathroom under the sink or in the medicine cabinet. I now know that is not a good idea. Besides being subject to steam and heat, the medicine can be reached by my kids if I store it in the bathroom cabinet. Being the little explorers that they are, my kids see cabinets as perfect treasure boxes – all of this little stuff to play with and potentially ingest.
Additionally, pharmaceutical compounds have been detected at low concentrations in our nation’s rivers, lakes, streams and drinking water, leading to concerns that these compounds may affect aquatic life. For these reasons, EPA initiated a study of unused pharmaceutical disposal practices at health care facilities with the goals of understanding one way in which pharmaceuticals enter our waterways and also understanding what factors contribute to pharmaceuticals entering through water. While EPA understands that there are many factors influencing the handling and disposal of pharmaceuticals by the health care industry, the focus of EPA’s study is on disposal into water. EPA decided to study medical facilities because the Agency believes that these facilities dispose of a large quantity of unused pharmaceuticals.
If you have not already done so, take a thorough look at your medicine cabinet. Find a new location to store your medicine that is not in the bathroom and is up high and out of reach of kids. Properly dispose of the medicine that you no longer use. Don’t dump it in the toilet or down the drain – if possible, take it to a prescription drug take-back event this weekend. Chances are there’s a drop-off location in your neighborhood. To find a drug take-back drop-off point, visit the Drug Enforcement Administration’s web page.
About the author: Meghan Hessenauer is an environmental scientist in EPA’s Office of Water. She is writing guidelines for the health care industry on how to manage their unused pharmaceuticals.
Editor's Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.
Thank you Meghan for this important information on where I can go to dispose of unused and expired medications on Saturday. I put in my zip code and found there are more than 35 locations within 10 miles of my home. Now that is what I call convenient.
Thank you for explaining how important it is that we safely dispose of medicine. We all have a responsibility to do so–for our environment, our children and families, and our future.
Since arthritis has stiffened my hands I request caps on my meds that are NOT child-proof. Unfortunately, that makes them even easier to access by my grand children when they come over. I’ll have to relocate them where I CAN (and they CAN’T) retrieve them. I also see I have old medications that I have kept beyond their expiration date and plan to find a drug disposal site soon.
A timely and timeless article!
Thank you very much for your important message. These ideas very helpfull me and my family in West Papua.
Thanks for the info, Meghan! Yes, you’re right, medicine must be in a safe place where children can’t reach especially disposable medicine!
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Thanks for explaining the disposal of medicine. It’s very important .
Great article post..Thanks for sharing here.keep on posting..
Your article is very good. It is very useful for me
This is a great article, and a great topic to explore. Thanks for sharing.
Appreciative post…
Good post!
Great content..
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Safe disposal of medicine is very much essential. Thanks for talking about such an important topic.
I really appreciate your hard work Meghan, thank you.
You have covered the topic quite well, there must be a proper medicine disposal mechanism in place…
Good point Patrick!I’ll have to try some of these for my subject lines as well ….Cheers,
I prefer this site completely……Thank you very much for your important message.
Nice and informative article, thanks for sharing.
Wonderful to hear about the safe disposal of Medicine. Too many people ending lives today because of this.
I never considered not just throwing away old prescriptions. I used to just put them in the garbage.
I don’t understand why they don’t have bins for this on every corner?
I really appreciate your hard work…:)
Very useful information. I was very pleased. Thanks
very nice work, keep it comming!
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Awesome tips.. It’s really important to place all the medicines where kids won’t be able to reach.
Ow some! i will visit this site to get different benefits because, very informative and thanks for commenting.
Thanks for the info, Yes, you’re right, medicine must be in a safe place where children can’t reach especially disposable medicine but other medicine!