Wallgreen will take unwanted old prescriptions

Company will dispose of old, unneeded pills

By Jeremy Carroll | WRN reporter

July 25 --Unsure what to do with expired or unwanted medication, patients often bring them back to the pharmacy hoping to be able to return the items there. "They want to do the right thing and not throw it out or flush it down the toilet," said Vivika Vergara, a spokesperson for Walgreens. "But we’re just not equipped to be able to handle it."
Walgreens, along with several other major national and local pharmacies, have signed on to the Safe Medication Disposal Program, designed by Sharps Compliance Inc., to find an outlet for the unwanted medication. Since the program was launched, it has collected and incinerated more than 123,000 pounds of medication, most of which has been collected in the last 10 months when some pharmacies signed on to the program.
"The feedback we’ve had has been very, very positive," said Vergara.
Walgreens has participated since the fall. Kroger, Rite-Aid and CVS have also partnered with the company.
"The numbers are staggering," said David Tusa, CEO of Texas-based Sharps Compliance. "There are over 200 million pounds of unused medications going into our water or our garbage."
Tusa said the company wanted to give patients an environmentally conscious and effective way to get rid of over-the-counter and prescription medication not being used.
The pharmacies sell a prepaid mailing envelope to send the medication to a processing facility.
"You buy [the envelope], take it home, and in the privacy of your own home, you place your unused medications into the envelope," Tusa said. "It’s real simple. Just drop it in the mail and it comes to our facility for proper treatment."
The envelopes cost $3.99 each, the company said.
Some of the pharmacies, including many independent ones, have larger boxes where they collect medicine onsite, for free, and it is sent to Sharps Compliance when its bin is full. In total, more than 22,000 pharmacies across the country have access to the program, Tusa said.
The drugs are sent to Sharps Compliance’s Carthage, Texas, facility where they are processed by a police officer and put in a Drug Enforcement Agency cage before being incinerated. The packages are never opened.
"We actually take much, much more precaution than is required to make sure the unused medications are properly processed and treated, and there is no potential for diversion," Tusa said.
The ash waste from the incineration is used to make concrete pellets.
Many communities have collection days for unused medications, but they can often be inconvenient for residents, Tusa said.
"They are often handled once or twice a year, so what if you can’t get there or are out of town that day?" he said. "What we find in our business is if you want a solution to be effective, it has got to be simple, easy-to-use and convenient."