Drug Topics - March 10, 2008 - (Page 25) www.drugtopics.com MARCH 10, 2008 DRUG TOPICS 25 Community Practice Pharmacy edges toward medication returns Fred Gebhart harmacy and environmental groups around the vironmental Protection Agency (EPA) to “continue country are trying to reduce contamination by research exploring any connection between the disposal taking medications back from consumers and of discarded prescription and OTC medications and destroying them. “We have always considered ourselves contamination of the water supply." The association also to be a green company,” said Peter Koshland, director calls for the development of programs for medication of pharmacy operations for Elephant Pharmacy, a four- disposal and encourages appropriate government entistore chain in the San Francisco area. ties to accept financial responsibility for disposal. Medication return pilot projects can be found from British Columbia started a pharmacy-based MedicaWashington to Maine. Marin County, just north of San tions Return Program in 1996. Pharmacies accept all Francisco, has one of the few Rx, OTC, and herbal prodpublicly funded medication reucts. Returns are stored in turn programs in the country. five-gallon buckets, which are Senior environmental health collected and incinerated. Enspecialist Robert Turner pigvironment Canada, Canada’s gybacked medication return equivalent of the EPA, classifies onto a successful syringe return unused medications as hazardprogram. Local independent ous waste, Oglesby added. The pharmacies and several chains BC program got a significant participate voluntarily. Pharmaboost this year when Vancoucies collect meds returned by ver banned medications from patients and the county pays for landfill and curbside recycling. shipping to a hazardous waste Elephant and other San disposal site. Most developed Francisco-area pharmacies, countries already have return veterinary offices, and physiprograms, Turner said, typically cian practices are part of the funded by the drug industry. Teleosis Institute’s Green Phar“It’s not a perfect system,” macy Program. So is Kaiser Koshland said, “but it’s better Permanente, which is piloting than what we had before.” “Be- Unwanted medicines collected by Teleosis. the program in one pharmacy. fore” is long-standing advice to Teleosis inventories returns to flush unused medications down the toilet. That recom- generate data on the types and volume of medications mendation was updated in early 2007. The American returned. Pharmacists Association now tells consumers to take Koshland said accepting medication returns is a unused meds to an approved collection center or haz- minor pharmacy burden. In St. Louis, Nicole Gattas, ardous waste collection facility if available. clinical pharmacy coordinator for Schnucks, a 60-store If return facilities are not available, consumers should grocery/pharmacy chain, agreed. mix the medication with water, then with some unpalTwenty Schnucks stores are taking medication reatable solids such as coffee grounds or cat litter, and dis- turns once a month in an 18-month, $150,000 pilot pose it in household trash. “We went berserk when we project funded by EPA. Returns are accepted by pharread that,” said Susan Oglesby, spokes-woman for the macy students on rotation and a pharmacy technician. British Columbia Pharmacy Association. “Dissolving “We’re looking for data on the medications that need your birth control pills in water, mixing with sawdust, proper disposal as well as the true costs involved,” and dumping the whole mess in a landfill is as environ- Gattas said. “We don’t have the industry funding that mentally nasty as flushing the pills. All you’ve done is is available in other developed countries. We are probput hormones in the water table instead of directly in ably the largest producer of unused medications in the the waterway that takes sewage treatment outflow.” world; we just don’t have the same level of attention paid APhA policy, reviewed in 2007, calls on the En- to the problem.” DT P http://www.drugtopics.com
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