What's a common item in almost every person's medicine cabinet?
Outdated or unused prescription medications.
So what do you do with them? Leave them there to collect dust? Throw them in the trash? Flush them down the toilet?
No. No. Definitely no!
It's dangerous to leave old medications sitting around. Children may find them and think that they are candy. You may try to reuse an expired medication yourself and find that it doesn't work effectively -- it may have lost its potency or not even be the proper medication for your ailment. In more serious situations, teenagers or young adults may help themselves to leftover pain medications, thus setting themselves up on the pathway to addiction. Many parents, grandparents, and other family members, may have leftover pain medications that they have totally forgotten about stored in their home; these medications can get into the wrong hands all too easily.
Throwing medications in the trash does get them out of your home and away from your family members, but it potentially puts them in the hands of other drug seekers or allows them to affect the environment.
Flushing medications down the toilet definitely gets them out of the reach of humans, but these medications find their way into our rivers and streams. Despite the current advancements in water purification and filtration, the tiny particles of medications slip through and are deposited in the soil, our rivers, and in drinking water.
Luckily for us, we have a wonderful solution to disposing of unwanted medications right here in Greenville, SC: Project Rx: A River Remedy. Project Rx takes places twice a year in and collects and disposes of unused prescription medications.Since the event started in 2010, almost 10, 000 lbs of medication have been collected and safely incinerated with law enforcement.
So go through your cabinets and look for any unwanted and/or expired prescription medications, over-the-counter medications, and pet medications. Keep all medications in their original containers for identification of the drug and quantity. Mark out your name and identifying details with a dark permanent marker, but be sure to leave the medication name visible for sorting purposes. If you have any medications in blister packs, punch out the pills into a sealed Ziploc bag along with the empty blister pouch. Then bring your medications to one of the convenient drive-thru locations listed below -- yep, that's right, you don't even have to get out of your car!
Project RX: A River Remedy locations for Saturday, September 27, 2014:
Greenville Technical College McAlister Square
225 South Pleasantburg Drive
Greenville, SC 29605
ST. FRANCIS millennium
2 Innovation Drive
Greenville, SC 29607
Greenville County Medical Society
1395 South Church Street
Greenville, SC 29605
