Who cares how I dispose of expired medication? I just flush those drugs down the toilet or sink.
Flushing your unused or expired medication may be quick and easy, but
that convenience comes at a high price. Fish in rivers near Dallas,
Chicago, Philadelphia and other cities were found to have measurable
levels of drugs used to treat depression, high cholesterol, bipolar
disorder, high blood pressure and other ailments. In the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., about 80 percent of the male bass have eggs in their testes or other reproductive problems. Similar results have been
seen in rivers nationwide. The cause, say researchers, is the high
levels of contraceptive drugs and other hormone-disrupting chemicals
in the water.
Fish, schmish. This isn’t gonna affect me or my family.
It might, unfortunately. Water treatment plants and most filters --
including filters for bottled water -- aren’t designed to clear out
trace amounts of drugs, so your drinking water probably contains many
of these same pharmaceuticals and countless others. Antibiotics, pain
medication, tranquilizers, antidepressants, hypertension drugs, and
sex hormones like estrogen have been found in the drinking water of
over 40 million people in the United States.
Aren’t there rules about these kinds of contaminants?
Not in most places. There are no federal standards or safety limits on
the amount of drugs that drinking water can contain, and very few
places test to see if there are any pharmaceuticals in their water.
Even large cities like New York, Chicago, Houston, Boston and Phoenix
don’t check for drugs in their tap water. In the example above from
the Potomac River, over 4 million people in the Washington, D.C., area
get their drinking water from that drug-contaminated source.
How big is the problem of unsafe disposal of medication?
It’s big, and getting bigger every year. Over 4 billion prescriptions
are written each year in the United States, and that number increases
every year. Some 40 percent of those drugs aren’t taken, according to
the National Community Pharmacists Association. That leaves roughly
200 million pounds of unused medication to dispose of somehow. And it
isn’t just the general public that’s dumping pharmaceuticals:
hospitals and other health care centers dispose of 250 million pounds
of drugs each year, and most are simply flushed down the drain.
But we’re talking about small amounts of diluted drugs -- what’s the
harm in that?
Nobody knows. The amounts of drugs in drinking water are tiny, but
remember that those drugs are usually prescribed for short-term use
only -- no one knows how a lifetime of exposure to low doses of
pharmaceuticals can affect human or animal health (though if the fish
in the Potomac River are in any way typical, the effects can be
alarming). Health experts are especially concerned about the impact of
long-term exposure on children, pregnant women and the elderly.
OK, I get it. So everyone should just dispose of their expired prescription drugs in the garbage.
Unfortunately, that can cause other problems. Kids and pets are
notorious for getting things out of trash bins, and there’s a
particular type of “dumpster diver” who specializes in finding old
pills and pill containers -- a favorite find is narcotic painkillers
like Vicodin and OxyContin -- then stealing the private information
that’s printed on the label. And even when they’re in a landfill,
drugs can leach out into water supplies.
Then what the heck am I supposed to do with expired prescription medicine?
Perhaps the best option is to find a drug store that recycles old
medication. A growing number of pharmacies are responding to the
threat of drug disposal by implementing drug take-back programs.
There’s a great website,
DisposeMyMeds.org, that has lots of
information on this issue and, best of all, a locator to find a drug
store in your area that takes back unused medication.
I checked around and found nothing within 25 miles of my house. What now?
The FDA and drug-enforcement agencies have developed guidelines to
help make drug disposal safer for everyone:
- Scratch out all personal information on the prescription bottle and
toss it in the garbage
- Pour the drugs into a sturdy, sealable sandwich bag or plastic container
- Add a tiny amount of liquid to dissolve the drugs
- Mix in coffee grounds, kitty litter or some other unappealing mess
- Place these in the garbage
What about donating unused drugs to charitable groups?
A handful of non-profits and charitable organizations do accept
medication, generally antiretroviral drugs for AIDS or cancer drugs.
There are, however, people who have expressed medical and ethical
concerns with sending expired or unused medications to developing
countries, since there may not be enough drugs to complete a drug
regimen, and the drugs may have lost their potency. Thirty-eight
states, however, have started programs to recycle medication; check the
National
Conference of State Legislatures website at www.ncsl.org for more
information.
