SAN ANTONIO – National Prescription Drug Take Back day is happening Saturday, April 26.
The days aims to provide a safe, convenient and responsible way to dispose of prescription drugs.
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Experts at University Health said unused and expired prescription medications can pose a threat to children and pets inside the home.
“I would recommend keeping them kind of out of sight, out of reach as much as possible,” said Melita Croom, Assistant Directory of Pharmacy at University Health.
If you have any medications at home that you don’t use anymore or are expired, it’s important you get rid of them properly.
On Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the DEA will be hosting its annual drug take back day across the country.
To see where you can drop off your unused prescription medications tomorrow, click here.
If you can’t make it out to one of the locations tomorrow, there are other ways you can properly dispose of your medications.
There are year-round drop off locations that you can drop your medicine off in.
You can also mail your expired or unused medicines using a pre-paid drug mail-back envelope.
Some medications can also be flushed. The FDA has a flush list of drugs that are safe to go down the drain. It is recommended to go to a drop off location or mail in your medications before flushing them.
Croom recommends not throwing your medications in the trash because they could get into the wrong hands.
“We know that there has been an opioid epidemic in the country and there’s many different ways that we can approach preventing access to opioids and disposing of them securely and safely is one of those primary ways. So that’s why we encourage to not use the trash,” Croom said.
When you drop off your medications at a take back location, Croom recommends covering all personal information on the label of the bottle.
“We just recommend that always that you’re covering that up or scratching it off, peeling that information away and kind of tearing it or shredding it appropriately. We even do that internally in our pharmacies,” said Croom.
University Health will be participating in Saturday’s drug take back event. However, they do provide allow medication take backs all year.
You can learn more about dropping off your prescription drugs at University Health by clicking here.
