Medication Disposal

According to the FDA:

Medicines play an important role in treating certain conditions and diseases, but they must be taken with care. Unused portions of these medicines must be disposed of properly to avoid harm. Almost all medicines can be thrown away in the household trash after mixing them with an unpalatable substance and sealing them in a container.

However, certain medicines may be especially harmful and, in some cases, fatal in a single dose if they are used by someone other than the person the medicine was prescribed for. For this reason, a few medicines have special disposal directions that indicate they should be flushed down the sink or toilet after the medicine is no longer needed. If you dispose of these medicines down the sink or toilet, they cannot be accidently used by children, pets, or anybody else.

It is important to note that disposal by flushing is not recommended for the vast majority of medicines. Disposal of these select, few medicines by flushing contributes only a small fraction of the total amount medicine found in the water. FDA believes that any potential risk to people and the environment from flushing this small, select list of medicines is outweighed by the real possibility of life-threatening risks from accidental ingestion of these medicines.

Unused or expired medicines that do not have flushing directions in the label can be disposed of safely in the household trash by:

1. Take your prescriptions out of their original vials.

2. Crush unused medicine and mix it with something undesirable, like kitty litter or sawdust or coffee grounds to prevent people or animals from ingesting it.

3. Conceal or remove personal info on the prescription label before disposing. You can mark out the info with a black permanent marker or cover with duct tape. You could also scratch off the label or soak in warm soapy water and rub the label off the container.

4. Place the mixture and original vial into a disposable container, such as a sealable bag.

5. Throw away the container in your household trash.

Other options are:

Drug take-back programs for disposal can be another good way to remove unwanted or expired medicines from the home and reduce the chance that someone may accidentally take the medicine. Contact your city or county government's household trash and recycling service to see if there is a take-back program in your community and if there are any rules about which medicines can be taken back.
You can also talk to your pharmacist to see if he or she knows of other medicine disposal programs in your area.
Take your outdated/unused medication to your local hospital for disposal.
Check with your individual state or county for more information on household hazardous waste; what you should do and how they handle it.