Carbamazepin disposal...

[Intothatendlessblue]

Hello all,

It's been a long year and, unfortunately, a long time since I've been able post and check in with everyone. I've been traveling in the Middle East and didn't always have reliable internet or a computer, but I'm back in the states and now dealing with changes made while I was overseas. I had my first series of cluster seizures and ended up spending about a week in the hospital recovering. While I was there all of my medications were switched or adjusted.

To that end I now have 720 pills of Carbamazepin (200 MG) and I have no idea how to dispose of it... any ideas?

I feel like I'm wasting it, but I don't think I have much choice.

Any advice would be awesome! Thank you!

<3

 

[epileric]

I know in Canada you can bring them to any pharmacy & they will get rid of them in a safe way (I believe they're incinerated). I'd assume the American pharmacists can do the same.

Whatever you do don't flush them down the toilet.

 

[valeriedl]

Whatever you do don't flush them down the toilet.

Why shouldn't you flush them down the toilet? I've done this before with meds that I've had to get rid of. I have a well too, not sewage like they do in the city.

 

[epileric]

Mostly because of how medications can effect the environment and pollute the waters, even well waters.

Drug pollution or pharmaceutical pollution is pollution of the environment with pharmaceutical drugs and their metabolites, which reach the marine environment (groundwater, rivers, lakes, and oceans) through wastewater. Drug pollution is therefore mainly a form of water pollution.

"Pharmaceutical pollution is now detected in waters throughout the world," said a scientist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York.[1] "Causes include aging infrastructure, sewage overflows and agricultural runoff. Even when wastewater makes it to sewage treatment facilities, they aren't equipped to remove pharmaceuticals."[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_pollution

 

[Dutch mom]

Two of my colleagues and their students do research on this topic, from the point of Logistics studies and Water Management.

https://insight.nhtv.nl/is-our-water-in-danger-because-of-increasing-medicine-use/

 

[AlohaBird]

When my Father passed away, I was left with a huge pile of various meds he had taken over the years. I called Kaiser (his HMO) to see if they would take them back at the pharmacy and they said no.

But this totally blew me away. They then proceeded to tell me that I should take the pills and put them in a dish of water until they were dissolved an then dig a hole in the garden and pour the resulting glop in and bury it.

Really? Seriously?

There was no way I was going to do that but that was the "official" word from one of the largest HMOs in the US.

So I put the pills in a baggie and took them to my next doctor's appointment and slipped them in the red box they have on the wall for the disposal of sharps and other bio-hazard waste.

 

[CQ:)]

I know in Canada you can bring them to any pharmacy & they will get rid of them in a safe way (I believe they're incinerated). I'd assume the American pharmacists can do the same.

I always take my left over meds to the chemist for them to dispose of properly.