Are last year’s cold meds sitting at the back of your medicine cabinet? Old prescriptions cluttering up your kitchen cupboard?
Today is National Prescription Drug Drop-Off Day and London Drugs is encouraging you to dispose of your outdated medications.
“It’s never a good thing to have expired medication laying around the house,” says assistant pharmacy manager Mike Lizotte. “There’s always a risk of taking medication that’s not effective or kids getting into it and stockpiling.It also keeps the medications from entering the water system.”
Lizotte says throwing expired medication in the garbage or flushing it down the toilet is never a good idea.
“The water treatment facility is unable to pull most of those chemical compounds out so a lot of that stuff enters the water treatment system into the rivers. It will also seep into the soil so if it’s just disposed of in the garbage, it’ll all end up in the soil as well.”
Dropping off your old pills is easy.
“It’s nice if they peel off the prescription label for confidentiality reasons. London Drugs also recycles all of the plastic from the bottles. The only thing we request is no sharps – medication only. It can be liquid, it can be prescription drug, over the counter drug, expired vitamins.”
London Drugs accepts expired medications at their pharmacies all year round but May 21 is about raising awareness.
“It’s more of a reminder for people to take a look in their medicine cabinets. Is it expired? Do I still need it? Am I still using this? If not, then bring it to the pharmacy for proper disposal.”
Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
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