What do you do with all your old prescription medications that you don’t need or that have expired? Do you flush them? Do you dispose of them in the garbage? No, the best way to dispose of unwanted or expired prescription medication is to take it to a local Prescription Drug Take Back Box.
The next National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is Saturday, April 24th, 2021. The event is an opportunity for people to collect their unused or expired prescription medications and drop them off at a safe, local Drug Take Back Box location.
National Drug Take Back Day occurs twice a year, once in the spring and once in the fall. It’s also a great event to highlight the need for a Drug Take Back program. Keeping old medications may seem like a harmless act, but when you’re not taking them anymore, you can easily lose track of what you have in those prescription bottles. Those medications, some of them strong and addictive opioids, could end up in the wrong hands, being misused without your knowledge. You don’t want a youth or someone with an opioid addiction to have easy access to your old medications while you are right in the next room.
So what can you do to help stop your old medications from being misused? Don’t flush them or throw them in the garbage, where they can end up polluting the environment or accidentally poisoning wildlife. Gather up all your unwanted, unused, or expired prescription medications and make sure to remove or obscure any of your identifying information. Then anonymously and safely drop the medications off at a local Prescription Drug Take Back Box on National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, Saturday, April 24th between 10:00 AM and 2:00 PM. If you are unable to participate in this Take Back Event, you can drop your medications off at any permanent Prescription Drug Take Back Box location. Locations near you can be found on the DEA’s disposal location search page.
