Don’t Recycle Your Identity

Proper disposal of unwanted medications is important, and one of the more popular methods for proper disposal of pharmaceuticals is the take-back program or disposal in the everyday trash. These two options are becoming more popular as information about how flushing meds is damaging the environment. But, more on that in the next article.

Take-it-back programs are usually sponsored by pharmacies and accept all kinds of pharmaceuticals: over the counter, personal care products and prescription drugs, including controlled substances. The take-back programs put on by local government can accept all these types of medications but NOT controlled substances.

So first knowing what kind of drugs you have is important as to which kind of program you should use. Check with your doctor or pharmacist to find out if your meds are controlled substances. And, as always, check with the take-it-back program to confirm what it accepts.

For those of you that just have to read the federal law, you can view the United States Drug Enforcement Administration’s list of controlled substances here.

Now that you have determined which take-it-back program to use there is another aspect of disposing unwanted medications that can be hazardous to your health. In fact, this aspect is real for almost every recycling program where you can take materials that contain personal information. And that is the risk of identity theft by leaving personal information at the recycling center.

There is personal information on your prescription drug containers. Just like the personal information on invoices, bank and credit card statements, and hard drives on the computers and materials that you take to the recycling center, that information might allow unscrupulous persons to steal your identity or use the information on your prescription to abuse drugs.

So whenever you drop off prescription drugs at the local take-it-back program or put them in the trash, remove your personal information by blacking it out with an indelible marker. Why not just throw the container in the trash? Two reasons. One, your information is still there in the trash for anyone to see and two, it is helpful if the take-it-back program can identify the drugs.

So remember, whenever you take any material to the recycling center:

1. Remove/ink out your name and prescription number
2. Leave the name of the medication on the label to ensure it is properly disposed through a household hazardous waste collection program

Next, unwanted medications: to flush or not to flush. There is growing evidence that flushing ANY kind of medication down the drain is damaging our environment and may threaten human life. Learn more as our series on Pharmaceuticals continues.