What is the best way to discard old expired medications?

Question

Should I flush the pills?
Dump the liquids down the drain?
Or just throw it in the trash as it is?

Answer 1

"In the past, most people flushed old medicines down the toilet. This was done to prevent accidental poisonings of children and animals who may find medicines in the trash. But today, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) no longer recommends this. Sewage treatment plants may not be able to clean all medicines out of the water. This may harm fish and wildlife. Fortunately, drinking water for humans has rarely been shown to have traces of medicines.

To throw away your medicines safely, check with your local government. Many cities and towns have household hazardous waste facilities where you can bring your old medicines. Or ask your pharmacist about proper disposal in your area. If disposal in regular trash is your best option, follow the steps below to prevent accidental poisonings with children and animals, and to protect your privacy.

* Keep all medicines in their original container with childproof lids attached.
* Mark out anyone's name that may be printed on a prescription container.
* Place liquids in a plastic sealable bag in case it leaks or breaks.
* Put everything inside a sturdy container (like a plain brown box).
* Add a non-toxic but bad tasting product like cayenne pepper to the container.
* Make this container the last thing you put in the garbage can before pick-up."

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

You can discard old expired medication by returning them to the pharmacy or to a medical lob.
You could flush or dump it down the drain but if you do it would waste resource as medical researcher could probably find some use for them. Throw them in the trash is a no no as your kids could be playing outside and pick it up curious enough to taste it and can later end up in the hospital.

Answer 4

PHARMACY: Out with the old medicines
Take time now to get rid of expired medications
Along with making your New Year's resolutions, local pharmacists say the end of the year is a good time to go through your medicine cabinet and discard expired medications.

Aspirin is an especially bad culprit, said Suzanne Kaiser, outpatient pharmacy operations manager at Stanford Hospital. You should throw it away, she says, "if it starts to smell like vinegar."

What most may think is the best place to keep medicines--the medicine cabinet in the bathroom--can actually be the worst.

Active ingredients in medicines don't tolerate humidity well, and being exposed to hot showers on a daily basis will deteriorate chemical ingredients.

The key, Kaiser said, is to pay attention to expiration dates when you buy medicine, and throw it out when that date is past. "As a pharmacist, I'd have to say don't use it."

Taking too little of a drug once it's expired won't be effective, and taking too much could result in adverse side effects. Antibiotics are designed to be finished entirely. Kaiser says they should never be used months later for a new illness, because they can often mask a new problem, like strep throat. Also, expired antibiotics will do little to

Answer 5

Flushing your medication is no longer a safe method. Reverse distribution is expensive, and not all towns have convenient incinerators, pickup centers, or hospitals with facilities for the "proper disposal" of medications.

A method I was informed of seems the best of both worlds. First, get rid of the label, to protect your sensitive information. Scrape it off, if you have to. Then, while the excess pills are still in the bottle, you fill it with water, put the lid back on, and store until the pills dissolve. Once this occurs, then you can throw them away.

Answer 6

So many answers saying the same thing LOL.

Unfortunatly we end up with partial bottles all the time. I asked the head pharmist what to do and she gave me great ideas. First off if we are going to be in the area of any pharmicy to stop by and ask them to dispose of them.

However if we did not have that option and did not want them just sitting around for someone to get into there may be another option. If you are on public sewer and you do NOT have a septic tank.... You can put them in a ziplock baggie, then pour in vinigar. It will help destroy much of it and nutralize quite a bit as well (depending on what the meds are) Then after it sits for a while you will see it is all liquid then you can run it down the drain with lots of water behind it.

If you are on a septic system you run the chance of killing off your tank and then it all just runs out into the ground and back into the water supply... You would also have septic system problems.

Never in the trash, To many things people... could get into them. Altho it might be funny to see a rat hyped up on something running in circles chaseing its own tell.

There are some Charitys that will be glad to take the empty bottles. They have a way to clean them out and then can reuse them for people that need the help. They can not accept the meds most of the time and recomend you remove your name from the lable if nothing else for your own protection.

Mostly what the others have said but maybe it will help.
Hugs Kim Lynn

Answer 7

Flush ALL drugs you no longer want or need. I fyou put them in the drain, the chemicals can seep into the ground and harm wildlife,cats,dogs,etc. By flushing,the meds go through the system and are broken down this way the harmful chemicals stay were no one should be harmed by them. If you simply through them away, anyone can take them out of the trash even at the curb when you take it out and I don't have to tell you how bad America's problem with addiction is. Addicts may even look through dump sites to find a fix, this disease makes a person seek out any drug anywhere. Flushing is the answer, I used to work at a Pharmacy and the FDA would come in and that was the procedure on all expired drugs. The controlled drugs they actually stood over us while we flushed them.

Answer 8

The FDA suggests asking if pharmacies will take back expired drugs, as is common in Canada and Australia. Pharmacies have programs to incinerate or otherwise dispose of inventory they can't sell, but the industry couldn't say how many would accept consumers' leftovers, too.

Answer 9

I understand that is now a government program for taken old expired Rx and the Fed Government will pick them up. It will be used in the Affordable Health Care Plan.

Answer 10

Some communities have special days or location for environmental impact trash pickup - this would be first choice.

Second best is to ask the manufacturer how to properly dispose of these drugs.

Third choice would be to bring them back to the drugstore that sold them.

Mix with cement into a brick and bury it 12 feet into dry earth.

Throw down an active volcano.

Look up on line how to dispose of hazardous waste

Fourth choice

Answer 11

I work in the medical field. We usually return them to the pharmacy for discard. Meds are then usually flushed or discarded into a sink.