Sponsored by a cost-share grant from DNREC's Pollution Prevention (P2) program, the Delaware Nursing Association’s Nurses Healing Our Planet in April staged the state's the first-ever "Medicine Cabinet Cleanout." The nurses collected over 43,000 pills in less than four hours at the Newark Senior Center.
All of the medication collected at the event was properly disposed of - instead of possibly ending up in Delaware's surface or ground waters, which is often the case when old prescriptions are discarded.
The nurses association is sponsoring a second Medicine Cabinet Cleanout July 25 at Delaware State Police Troop 1A, in the Brandywine Towne Center, Wilmington - offering another a chance for citizens to get outdated pharmaceuticals out of their medicine cabinets and properly disposed of without jeopardizing local water quality.
Nurses Healing Our Planet, an environmental task force of the Delaware Nurses Association, and the DNREC P2 program invite residents of these communities to bring in all unwanted prescriptions and over-the-counter medications - as well as vitamins, inhalers, eye and ear drops, veterinary pills and other liquid medications in their original containers.
The next Medicine Cabinet Cleanout will take place at: Georgetown Fire Company, 100 South Bedford Street, Georgetown, DE 19947, from 8 a.m. - Noon.
All pharmaceuticals brought in will be disposed of in an environmentally safe manner. This disposal approach comes after evidence emerged that flushing them away is the wrong way to dispose of unwanted drugs. According to the Associated Press, some drugs "resist modern drinking water and wastewater treatment processes."
The same AP investigation disclosed that "a vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones" have been found in the drinking water supplies of more than 40 million Americans. Meanwhile, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that no sewage treatment systems are specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals.
