Get the Meds Out!

Get the Meds Out!

From the desk of Mary Ann Olson,

Family Living Educator

Do you have medications in your home that you know longer use? The University of Wisconsin-Extension recently launched a new pharmaceutical mail-back program in an effort to safely prevent unwanted medications from entering the Great Lakes or being abused in Wisconsin homes.

The program, called “Get the Meds Out,” provides free postage-paid padded envelopes to participating pharmacies, senior centers and county health departments in the 36 Wisconsin Great Lakes watershed counties, including Adams County. Residents can use the envelopes to mail unused prescription and over-the-counter drugs to a central location where the medications will be disposed of safely. In Adams County the Moundview Memorial Hospital and Clinic has the envelopes available at the front desk of the clinic.

The program is being funded by a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as part of the EPA’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. More than 300 pharmacies and other locations have already signed up to participate.

“In the past, a number of Wisconsin municipalities held one-day events to collect unwanted medications and other hazardous substances and dispose of them safely,” said Steve Brachman, Waste Reduction Specialist with the University of Wisconsin-Extension. “But those weren’t always convenient for people with chronic illnesses or the elderly, and sometimes the collection points couldn’t accept controlled medications.”

Evidence of pharmaceutical contamination of the Great Lakes, plus Wisconsin’s rising incidence of prescription drug abuse points to the need for a more comprehensive approach to medicine disposal, including a mail-back option, Brachman explains.

Unused medicines can be a danger to kids, pets and other household members. They may also have a negative impact on water quality. Flushing medications down the toilet, once thought to be the best method of drug disposal, is no longer recommended since even advanced municipal wastewater treatment systems cannot completely remove pharmaceutical compounds and the substances are often discharged back into the environment.

“Get the Meds Out” provides a convenient and environmentally safe way to clean out the medicine cabinet,” says Brachman.

Residents can take the pre-addressed and pre-paid envelopes home, fill them with their unwanted medicines and drop them into a regular mailbox. All envelopes are sent to the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency, where they are sorted and sent for safe disposal.

UW-Extension collaborated with the Safe Medicine Disposal for ME Program, the first pharmaceutical mail-back programs in the country, because of its ability to receive controlled substances through the mail, Brachman noted. The Maine program began in 2008.

Wisconsin’s “Get the Meds Out” program is scheduled to run though September 2012.

Participating counties are Adams, Ashland, Bayfield, Brown, Calumet, Columbia, Door, Douglas, Florence, Fond du Lac, Forest, Green Lake, Iron, Kenosha, Kewaunee, Langlade, Manitowoc, Marathon, Marinette, Marquette, Menominee, Milwaukee, Oconto, Oneida, Outagamie, Ozaukee, Portage, Racine, Shawano, Sheboygan, Vilas, Washington, Waukesha, Waupaca, Waushara and Winnebago Counties. These include several counties where only a portion of the acreage is part of the Great Lakes watershed.

For a county-by-county list of locations where residents can obtain mail-back envelopes, visit http://www4.uwm.edu/shwec/meds/index.cfm

For more information on the “Get the Meds Out” program, go to http://fyi.uwex.edu/pharma/get-the-meds-out-program/