At the end of the past winter some of the members of this group asked me how to recycle medicines.
In Italy we bring the leftover medicine or the expired medicine to the pharmacy, but I had no clue of what happens here in USA.
So I called the Ohio EPA. The answer was a little bit astonishing for me. They said that so far the domestic waste of medicine is not regulated. So usually people throw the medicine in the toilet or put them loose in the garbage. But he admitted that this could pose a risk for water contamination or for kids and animals, which may go root around the garbage and eat them.
So at the moment the best thing to do is to buy the quantity of medicine strictly necessary so they do not expire in our cabinets.
When you buy a medicine ask the pharmacy, both human and veterinarian, if they will collect and properly discharge any expired leftover. They will probably tell you they do not have this service, but if we keep asking they may decide to start one.
If you end up having medicine that you need to throw away, collect them as much as you can (I would add “then try one more time to bring them back to the pharmacy again”), and put them in a sealable plastic bag with some cat litter in each container (seal the cap tight) and in the bag (so no one will eat them!) and throw it in the garbage.
A few days after this question was raised, around the 10th of March 2008, an Associated Press investigation about the drinking water contaminated by medicine in USA was released (http://cbs3.com/national/medicine.found.water.2.673206.html).
Today the EPA announced that they are taking the matter very seriously and they continue work to understand potential impacts of pharmaceuticals in water (http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/ppcp/).
In Italy we bring the leftover medicine or the expired medicine to the pharmacy, but I had no clue of what happens here in USA.
So I called the Ohio EPA. The answer was a little bit astonishing for me. They said that so far the domestic waste of medicine is not regulated. So usually people throw the medicine in the toilet or put them loose in the garbage. But he admitted that this could pose a risk for water contamination or for kids and animals, which may go root around the garbage and eat them.
So at the moment the best thing to do is to buy the quantity of medicine strictly necessary so they do not expire in our cabinets.
When you buy a medicine ask the pharmacy, both human and veterinarian, if they will collect and properly discharge any expired leftover. They will probably tell you they do not have this service, but if we keep asking they may decide to start one.
If you end up having medicine that you need to throw away, collect them as much as you can (I would add “then try one more time to bring them back to the pharmacy again”), and put them in a sealable plastic bag with some cat litter in each container (seal the cap tight) and in the bag (so no one will eat them!) and throw it in the garbage.
A few days after this question was raised, around the 10th of March 2008, an Associated Press investigation about the drinking water contaminated by medicine in USA was released (http://cbs3.com/national/medicine.found.water.2.673206.html).
Today the EPA announced that they are taking the matter very seriously and they continue work to understand potential impacts of pharmaceuticals in water (http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/ppcp/).
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