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The Monster in Your Medicine Cabinet

Posted by Flora Sawita

So,what do YOU do with your old expired or unused medications? Flush them, right?WRONG. Ithas been found that while this practice protects those in your home fromaccidentally ingesting the bad drugs, it does not protect fish, or other marinewildlife that may be exposed to them later. Another problem…if the water contaminatedby your meds does eventually get reused, humans can be exposed to certainchemicals in those medications. Not, good. Not, good.

So,what do you do with your old medicines? You can’t just leave them in the medicinecabinet. Not only does that take up space you could use for other things, italso leaves potentially dangerous drugs sitting around where anyone can get a holdof them. Definitely not a good idea when you aren’t the only one in the house. Accordingto the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, more Americans abuse prescription drugsthan people using cocaine, hallucinogens, and heroin combined (2011). Much ofthe time these medications are obtained from the family medicine cabinet. Anotherhorrible thought…what could possibly happen if a child got a hold of your old meds,and decided to take a few, or more? It doesn’t paint a pretty picture.

So,if you can’t flush them, and you can’t keep them, where does that leave you? Noneed to worry, there are things that you can do. The best option by far is tosee if your local community has drop-off days or places for old medicines.Sometimes there will be multiple drop-off spots that you can choose from. Justdrive by the drop-off, and say good-bye to those dangerous drugs!

Ifabsolutely no drop-offs are available, you could still toss your old meds inthe trash. Just follow these precautions when you do:

1. Keep medicine inits original container, and cover the patient’s name with a marker, but not theinformation denoting what the drug is.

2. Modify thecontents to make them unappealing to those who might want to take them. This mightmean adding some vinegar to your pill container in order to semi-dissolve themeds.

3. Tape thecontainer shut, and place the container in a bag or other package that no onecan see through. This may keep those who might be looking for meds, fromfinding them.

4. Finally, toss intrash.

Thebest option for med disposal is, of course, to find a drop-off site. If thatfails, take the above precautions, and then toss. Whatever you choose to do,do NOT flush your medications down the toilet.

Formore information on this topic, read:
http://www.pca.state.mn.us/index.php/living-green/living-green-citizen/household-hazardous-waste/pharmaceutical-waste-disposing-of-unwanted-medications.html

Formore information on what to do with other household medical waste, read:
http://www.epa.gov/osw/nonhaz/industrial/medical/disposal.htm
http://earth911.com/news/2011/10/26/saving-sharps-saving-money-recycling-medical-waste/


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