Where to Dispose of Unwanted or Expired Medications

PLEASE NOTE: The Alameda County HHW facilities can no longer accept prescription drugs and medicine due to the DEA ban on accepting Controlled Substances.

Prescription drugs and ointments, as well as any Controlled Substances, must be taken to one of the approved drop-off locations. These drop-off locations feature convenient self-service kiosks that accept Controlled Substances, as well as prescription and over-the-counter pills, creams, and liquids.

Find Medicine Drop-off Locations

medicine - liquid - solid BG 200x191x32Dangers of Throwing Medication in the Trash or Down the Drain

Prescription and over-the-counter medications are an important part of our lives. But what about prescriptions that have expired or were never taken? What about those little red pills you think you bought for a cold last year, but you’re not sure what they’re for? How do you get rid of those? Your first instinct might be to flush them down the toilet or throw them in the garbage. That would not be right!

Although modern wastewater treatment plants are efficient at removing many contaminants from the wastewater stream, no plant is able to remove them all. The EPA warns that sewage treatment systems are not specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals, and those drugs can pass intact into waterways, lakes and even aquifers when people dispose of unused medicines by flushing them down the toilet. Further, discarded pharmaceuticals often end up at dumps and landfills, posing a threat to underlying groundwater.

Traces of popular heart medications, anti-depressants, antibiotics, cholesterol-lowering drugs, chemotherapy drugs, veterinary drugs, and hormones are turning up in groundwater across the world. A recent water quality study found those and other drugs present in San Francisco Bay. The easiest way to limit the amount of these potentially hazardous drugs in our water is to not flush them down the toilet or pour them down the drain.

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Don’t see what you are looking for? Find more links on main Solid Waste/Recycling page.