MY MEDICINE CABINET

You wouldn't take someone else's prescription, would you? There could be serious risks in taking medication that wasn't meant for you.

When we flush our leftover or expired prescriptions or other medications down the toilet, we're introducing those chemicals to our drinking water. In effect, we're making everybody else take our pills.

Drugs and medication can help us in so many ways. But, there are side effects you may not have thought about. Some of the medications we take can negatively impact the environment around us - and you - if they are not disposed of correctly.

When prescription or over-the-counter drugs are thrown into the garbage, or flushed down the sink or toilet, their chemical components can end up in our water supply or soil. Although the concentration levels of these products in the environment is very low, they may be enough to cause harm. In the medical and scientific communities there is concern that leftover prescriptions that are disposed of incorrectly are affecting the problem of antibiotic resistance.

There is also concern over the effects of medications ending up in our drinking water sources. Water treatment plants weren't designed to capture all the different chemicals that are found in medicine. So the only way to keep these drugs out of our water is to dispose of them safely.

Take your unused or expired medication to your local pharmacy or call your local health unit, either will dispose of them safely for you. If you are interested in donating your family's unused medications to those in need of medical supplies contact the Canadian Medicine Aid Program. More information on CANMAP is available through their Toronto office at 416-778-7865.

Tips

• Do not put expired or unused medication in the garbage or down the toilet or sink.
• Check to see if your pharmacy has a drug recycling program that disposes of unused or expired drugs in an environmentally safe manner.
• If your area does not have such a program, see if your municipality incinerates medication. If so, take your unused drugs to your municipality's waste disposal depot.
• Most municipalities hold events each year where residents can dispose of household hazardous products at no charge. Contact your local municipality about Household Hazardous Waste Days in your area.
• At least once a year, go through your medicine cabinet and remove prescription drugs that are old or that you no longer take. Check the expiry date on non-prescription drugs and remove those that are outdated as well.
• Safely discard old products, damaged containers and old supplies.