Pill disposal

Grampa Don said:
We're not supposed to throw prescription drugs in the trash. My wife's passing left me with a bag full of prescriptions. So, wanting to do the right thing I took them to the CVS pharmacy where they came from. I asked the woman at the counter if she could dispose of them for me. She seemed confused and called the pharmacist over. He said "Oh, we don't have a disposal box here but the CVS at XXXX has one." So, I drove the 5 miles or so to the other CVS and carried my bag of pills in.

They had a box, but there was a sign on it that it was full. So, I asked the clerk if they could take my bag and dump it in the box after it is emptied. "Oh no, we can't do that." So, I said the Hell with it and brought them home and tossed them in the trash.

If the government wants us to dispose of medicines safely, then they should make it illegal for pharmacies to refuse their return. It's the same thing with toxic waste. If I want to toss out anything electrical, I have to drive to the next city and wait in line. If they were serious about this there would be drop boxes at every hardware store.
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Sorry for your bad experience Don.
When my husband died, I gathered all his prescription bottles together, and took them to the nearest Walmart Pharmacy.
Didn't have any problems with them, and they even gave me a refund on a prescription bottle that he had just picked up that morning ... something that is not legally allowed I was told. They worked around it with a gift card in the amount instead.
 

Alligatorob said:
After treatment in the sewage treatment plants it goes into our waterways, most all does. And many drugs are not very effectively removed in the sewage treatment process. Result is many of these thing end up in our water.

I just toss old drugs into the trash, I think that's better than flushing. Not as good as actual destruction though.
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Again, it depends on where you live. Most treatment facilities today remove 85 to 98 percent of all contaminants and the majority of them use the tertiary water for irrigation, like golf courses. There many facilities where the water is used for drinking. In Orange County, CA there is a facility that the tertiary water is so clean this need to add minerals so when the water in ingested it doesn't leech minerals from the body. ( There's a video of this facility on YouTube). Many countries are use this water for drinking, Sweden being the most advanced. I worked in this industry building the treatment facilities. They're not what they once were. This will become the norm in our future. Billions of water are treated daily in our country alone. Septic's and landfills are not the solution for any toxics as they will find there way into the aquafers.
 
dko1951 said:
Again, it depends on where you live.
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That is true, the ultimate fate of treated wastewater is different in dry western states than in the humid east. In the west it is more likely reused in some way, irrigation of golf courses as you point out, some of it is also recharged to groundwater to replace depletion. Either way this can end up in our water supply, some of what is applied to golf courses leaches to groundwater. In the eastern states it is more likely discharged to surface water bodies.

It is also true that many sewage pipes leak before getting to the wastewater treatment plant. This pretty much goes to groundwater.
dko1951 said:
Most treatment facilities today remove 85 to 98 percent of all contaminants
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I think you are referring to the biological solids in the sewage and the regulated and routinely monitored contaminants. Good wastewater treatment plants are pretty good at that. Our modern wastewater treatment plants do what they were designed to do very well.

Pharmaceuticals and the like are generally not regulated and less likely monitored, they make up only a small percentage of the contaminants, but can be more powerful toxins. Many of these are not well treated by the processes normally used for wastewater treatment, and get through into what is discharged as clean water.

It is a complex problem, EPA and others have been working on for a number of years now, and are beginning to understand. See for example Pharmaceutical Residues in Municipal Wastewater However we have no good solutions yet, not flushing drugs helps...
dko1951 said:
Septic's and landfills are not the solution for any toxics as they will find there way into the aquafers.
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I agree incineration or some kind of total destruction is best. Septic tanks are a bad idea, it usually ends up in groundwater. Lined landfills are a lot better than flushing, not as good as total destruction, but a lot of them are in use and being built today. Would not surprise me to learn that some of the drugs put into fire department or drug store bins end up in lined landfills, but I don't know.
 

Forget who ? ........ But someone said they burn theirs either in the grill [when they are not cooking]. But usually in their firepit ..... Just pick a still nite, when the smoke goes straight up.
 

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