This Saturday, Oct. 26, is the semi-annual national Medication Takeback Day with Geisinger offering convenient locations to drop off unused or expired medications.Geisinger has 40 medication-disposal boxes through central and northeastern Pennsylvania, including one inside the Geisinger Pottsville Clinic at 529 Terry Reiley Way in Pottsville. The box can accept prescription and over-the-counter solid medications, tablets and capsules, liquid medications in the original containers, prescription patches, medical creams and ointments, vitamins, nasal sprays and even pet medications. The boxes are secure, allowing narcotics and controlled substances to be accepted. If possible, leave prescriptions in their original bottles.
“Cold and flu season is almost here, and you might be reaching to take some medicine,” said Jenny Plummer, a Geisinger pharmacist and director of Geisinger’s retail and mail-order pharmacy. “Now is a great time to look inside your medicine cabinets and around the house and collect any old or expired medications.”
Letting medications accumulate at home can cause problems, including opening the doorway for those medications to fall into the wrong hands, Plummer said. She recommends frequently sweeping your home and looking closely at expiration labels.
“As you check your medications, make sure they’re not expired or labeled incorrectly, and most importantly, keep them out of reach of young kids,” Plummer said. “Leaving unused prescriptions or expired over-the-counter medications in the home poses a great risk. If you have a question about a prescription or medication, you can always ask your pharmacist about whether a medication is safe to keep or properly dispose of it.”
Not everything can be accepted in the takeback boxes, however. Items not accepted include intravenous solutions, injectables, syringes, needles, hydrogen peroxide, compressed cylinders or aerosols (like asthma inhalers), iodine-containing medications, thermometers or alcohol.
Geisinger’s medication takeback team is a coalition of dedicated health care professionals working to elevate the importance of reducing the impacts of unused, unwanted and expired medications on public health, including drug addiction and environmental impacts. The team works year-round to encourage to the utilization of medication takeback boxes as the safest and most efficient way to securely dispose of medications.
For a list of Geisinger medication takeback box locations, head to www.geisinger.org/takeback.