On Saturday, Oct. 28, locations the Drug Enforcement Administration and law enforcement around the country are offering a free and safe way to get rid of your unused, expired, and unwanted prescription medications!
Gather up all of your unwanted and expired prescription drugs and head to participating law enforcement locations between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Oct. 28. There is no cost for dropping them off!
Needles are not accepted, and vapes will only be accepted with the batteries removed.
The twice-yearly National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is a convenient way to ensure the medications you no longer need or want are disposed of without harming the environment or others. It also prevents accidentally taking expired medications, which can either have limited efficacy or become dangerous overtime.
It’s not just for narcotics or other Schedule IV or V drugs — any medication can be turned in!
For your safety and wellness, it is inadvisable to hold onto any old prescriptions. For example, while you should always finish your full course of antibiotics unless your doctor advises you to stop, it might be tempting to hang onto some “just in case.” However, those antibiotics will lose potency as they age, making them ill-suited to use if the infection returns or a new one crops up.
Most pharmacies accept returned drugs for proper disposal year-round, but it can be a hassle to find one and make time for the trip in a busy schedule.
You may have considered simply flushing unused medication down the toilet or tossing them in the trash to keep it out of the wrong hands or from taking up space in your medicine cabinet. However, those drugs enter the sewage waste and can even end up leaching into ground or surface waters, or wind up in landfills and other waste sites where wildlife may scavenge.
Once the evidence came in of just how high the concentration of prescription drug waste was in our environment and noting the risk to public safety, the DEA began encouraging Prescription Drug Take Back Days to law enforcement across the nation.
If you want to find the closest drop-off site, you can search with your city or zip code on the DEA website!
Can’t back it to a drop-off on Oct. 28? No worries! You can look for pharmacies near you which accept unwanted drugs year round as well.
