Here’s why you should dispose of your drugs responsibly

Whether you unsafely dispose of your medication or you keep your expired/unsafe medicine in the home, you could be putting lives in danger and impacting the environment negatively. The proper disposal of drugs is incredibly important and can prevent negative, toxic, and harmful effects on our beautiful environment that can be caused if we dispose of drugs incorrectly.

Safely disposing of your drugs can also help to prevent them from reaching people who really shouldn’t have them. When you flush or throw away your drugs, their impact doesn’t end there. They continue to negatively affect plenty of other living beings and although they may have been good for you, they can be very bad for others. If you need to get rid of prescription drugs when they are out of date, you will need to be cautious.

Drugs in our water supply

It is a long-known fact that our tap water can contain lots of nasties, it is a given at this point. However, did you know that our water actually may contain drugs? You’ll be surprised to find out what hidden little nasties are hiding out in our water supply.

Any substance at all, when flushed down the toilet will make its way into our waterways. This includes, but is not limited to, prescription drug residue. If you have a septic system, it can leech into the groundwater and enter your water supply and if you’re one a community system, it will enter your water supply even after wastewater treatment.

Treatment systems are designed to remove foreign substances (aka nasties), however, they do not process the water to remove drugs. This means that when wastewater is returned to the environment, it brings with it all the chemicals from the drugs that have been flushed. Properly disposing of your drugs can save innocent lives and positively impact the environment.

Drugs can easily get into the wrong hands

When you dispose of your drugs, you must do it carefully because if you do not, they could end up in the wrong hands entirely. Drug abuse is becoming more and more prominent in the world we live in today. So, when drugs are improperly disposed of, they can quite easily end up with someone they shouldn’t.

Whether it is a clueless teenager, a curious child, or someone combing through the trash. Your drugs could be a great find in their eyes, but in the long run, it could ruin their lives and the lives of the people around them. When your drugs are properly disposed of, they will usually be unrecognizable which makes it so much safer for anyone that may find them.

If they are seen as trash instead of drugs, you can keep them out of the hands of the wrong person.

So, how do I properly dispose of my drugs?

Disposing of your drugs is as simple as 1,2,3.

1. Mix your drugs with entirely unpalatable substances (coffee grounds, cat litter, or dirt).
2. Place the mixture of the drugs and unpalatable substance within a sealed plastic bag.
3. Throw away the bag containing your substances in your household trash.

Before throwing away your drugs, make sure that all of your identifying information has been removed.

Author:

Nikita Hillier