CarenetLA Home Care Los Angeles, CA

What  To  Do  With  Leftover,  Expired  Medicines and Pill Containers —  Discard  Or  Re – Use?

By Hadas Abouaf, R.N., Russell Ford

Anyone who has prescription and over-the-counter medications in their home eventually notices that the medicine is beyond its expiration date.  It's not an unusual situation, but it can cause a dilemma.  You may wonder how and when to dispose of this medicine.

Both the California Pharmacists Association and the City of Los Angeles Sanitation Department of Public Works agree on the answer.  They recommend you should never put medications you plan to dispose of into drains, or flush them down the toilet.  These medicines pollute the environment and add toxic elements to the water supply, harming not only our water sources and the soil, but also endangering all living things.

To properly dispose of unused medications — there are two options:

1. Please take any sealed containers with old medicine inside them to a Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center or event (no controlled substances are allowed at these locations).  For more information, call the City's Household Hazardous Waste Roundup Hotline at 1(800) 98-TOXIC.
2. Put the medicines in a sturdy, securely sealed container, then place them in a trashcan where children and animals can't reach them.  You may wish to use a Magic Marker… and cross out your name or any personal information printed on the medication bottle's label with its indelible ink, before discarding the container.

Professional pharmacists we interviewed all agreed that the expiration dates on medicines are very accurate.  They said that although the medicines may retain some degree of potency up to a month after the expiration date… it's safest to observe the expiration date, and discard any medicine past that printed date.  These pharmacists also advised that eyedrops are very vulnerable and degradable liquids.  Eyedrops should not be used beyond one month, after the day they are first opened.  They stated that the eyedropper is very easily contaminated.

Many people find plastic pill bottles irresistible to use as containers for buttons, craft project materials like beads and jewels, etc.  The professional pharmacists we interviewed cautioned against using old medicine bottles for purposes other than those for which they were designed.  The bottles usually still contain powdered residue on their inner surfaces from the pills or capsules they once contained.  Simply rinsing them out with water may not remove all of this residue.

In the future, adults or children may decide to re-use these containers, and believe they are ready for a different use because they "look clean."  If this new person decides to put some of their own medicine into the bottle, the residue might cling to the surfaces of those pills.  People can have allergic reactions to medicine that is not their own.  Pharmacists swab down their counting trays with alcohol before dropping each new medication into them.  It's impossible for you to completely sterilize the interior of tiny pill bottles using this same method.

Because of this, the pharmacists we polled strongly recommended that you dispose of empty plastic pill containers by leaving their caps tightly sealed, and taking them to the Household Hazardous Waste Collection Center or event.  The trained personnel at these locations will safely and properly dispose of them.

To learn more about this subject of safe disposal, you may go to the website :www.nodrugsdownthedrain.org.  It is our hope that we have provided helpful, environmentally conscientious solutions to you.

The staff at CarenetLA is a team of seasoned professionals that assigns the finest personal attendants to our clientele.  Our kind-hearted and compassionate caregivers provide the very best in non-medical in-home care.  The goal ofCarenetLA is to share knowledge by offering ideas and suggestions to interested senior citizens, adults of all ages, families and significant others.  For more information about CarenetLA, please visit www.carenetla.com or call 310-393-1282.