Medication Information & Disposal                                 

Reduce pharmaceutical and personal care waste

• Encourage your health care provider to prescribe only the medication you need at precisely sufficient quantities to be effective.  Consider a trial prescription for new maintenance medications so you can find out if they work for you before getting a 30- or 90-day supply.
• Buy Over the Counter (OTC) medications in quantities that can be used before the expiration date, typically two years from manufacture.

Household Solid Waste

• Take unused, unneeded, or expired prescription drugs out of their original containers and throw them in the trash. If possible, make the medicines as unrecognizable and unpalatable as possible to discourage accidental or intentional misuse. Put them in impermeable, non-descript containers, such as empty cans or sealable bags.

Disposal in domestic sewer (flushing)

• Do not flush drugs down the toilet unless the label or accompanying patient information specifically instructs doing so. Many drugs are not degraded by the wastewater treatment process or in a septic system, and, consequently, are released into the environment.
• The exception to this rule are the medications that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advises to be flushed down the toilet instead of thrown in the trash because of their high abuse potential. These medicines include:

Actiq (fentanyl citrate)
Daytrana Transdermal Patch (methylphenidate)
Duragesic Transdermal System (fentanyl)
OxyContin Tablets (oxycodone)
Avinza Capsules (morphine sulfate)
Baraclude Tablets (entecavir)
Reyataz Capsules (atazanavir sulfate)
Tequin Tablets (gatifloxacin)
Zerit for Oral Solution (stavudine)
Meperidine HCl Tablets
Percocet (Oxycodone and Acetaminophen)
Xyrem (Sodium Oxybate)
Fentora (fentanyl buccal tablet)

Visit http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/drugfact/factsht/proper_disposal.html for more information.

Information taken from MADEP: http://www.mass.gov/dep/toxics/stypes/ppcpedc.htm#top