Getting rid of old medications -- in a green way

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One of my affectionate childhood memories is of opening my parents’ medicine cabinet to face a jumble of pills, bottles and evil-smelling potions. It was an alchemist’s trove! I think the meds are all still there, and many more besides -- you could probably find a blood-letting fleam or two if you poked around in the darkest recesses. (My folks lived through rationing during WW2. It’s understandable.)

If you’ve got antediluvian pharmaceuticals cluttering up your medicine cabinet, the American Pharmacists Assn. now urges you to toss them out -- safely, greenly, eco-friendly-ly, so that traces of meds don’t end up in waterways and harm aquatic life.

APhA, along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the pharmaceutical industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, banded together this year to create a campaign for green medicine disposal that they refer to as the SMARxT Disposal campaign (Rx! Get it?)

Here is the APhA news release, and here is the website for the SMARxT public awareness campaign. And here are some of the highlights:

Don’t flush the meds down the toilet or pour them down the sink. Put them in the household trash instead -- in a sealable plastic bag, prepared in a manner that will protect kids and pets.

If they’re pills, crush them to powder or add water to dissolve them. And try to make the disposed material unappetizing, for instance by mixing it with sawdust, coffee grounds, kitty litter. (Kitty litter, seriously? To keep dogs away? Not sure that would work in my house, where if anything, kitty litter appears to be considered something akin to a treat.) Then seal the bag.

Oh, and destroy all identifying information on the labels.

The campaign also advises consumers to check for approved state and local collection programs. Best first step to find out about that: Talk to your local pharmacy. It may be able to take the pills for you.

Here’s a link to an AP story that discusses med disposal in more detail.

-- Rosie Mestel