Donate Unused Medications: Benefits & How-To

The cost of prescription drugs increases every year. At least 37 states have enacted legislation since 1997 that allows patients and health care professionals to donate unexpired, unused prescription medications. These prescriptions are then redispensed to patients lacking sufficient insurance or resources to obtain their medications. An additional smaller benefit of this practice is the reduction of environmental contamination, which is becoming a significant problem due to improper disposal of unused pharmaceuticals.

Instructions

• 1

  Call one of your local pharmacies or the pharmacy department of a nearby hospital to locate health care facilities and pharmacies in your area accepting recycled pharmaceuticals. You can also find this information through the Internet, as most states and many municipalities publish information about donating medications for redispensing online.

• 2

  Donate only unopened and unexpired prescription medicine that you do not need. Unsealed or previously opened containers of medication are not eligible. The only exception is for unit dose packages. In this case, the outside package may have been opened, but the blister packs containing the tablets or capsules must be intact.

• 3

  Placing biomedical waste in a proper receptacle ensures its safe disposal.

  Take unused, unneeded or expired medications to an approved drug-disposal site if no recycling or drug take-back programs operate in your area. If no drug-disposal facilities exist in your area, do not flush the medicine down the toilet, as this will only add to contamination of local water supplies. Instead, take the drugs designated for disposal out of their containers, crush tablets or empty out capsules, and mix them with coffee grounds or cat litter. Then package the mixture into empty cans or resealable impermeable bags, and throw the bags in the trash.