Dear Jon: Taking back your old medications

Recent studies have found household medicines are ending up in our lakes and streams and that’s raising questions about the quality of our drinking water. Local agencies have guidelines to keep trace pharmaceuticals out of ground water and work to inform us on the right way to take back our medications.

Rosa from Watsonville sent me note, “Dear Jon, I have a lot of old meds that I’d like to get rid of, but I don’t know where to take them. Where do I go?

The Monterey Regional Water Protection Control Agency has water treatment plants that do filter most substances, except trace pharmaceuticals. Paul Sciuto, Deputy General Manager with that agency and says there’s been a number of reports throughout the Central Coast of trace pharmaceuticals found in ground water and ultimately in our drinking water. So in order not to perpetuate that, he suggests these best practices for getting rid of old meds.

“We prefer that you don’t flush them down the toilet. Any over the counter medications and needles, sharps if you will, the waste management district will accept. Prescription medication, if possible take to a pharmacy that will accept old medications like that. As a last resort, put them in an impermeable plastic bag with coffee grounds or kitty litter of something of that sort and send them to the landfill, but again, that’s a last resort.”

You’d think that the water treatment plant would clean out all the pharmaceuticals, but Sciuto says almost, “The treatment plant does a great job of producing 99.9 percent clean water…however it is not designed to take out those trace pharmaceuticals. It’s designed to take out more of the organics coming out of the dishwasher and showers and things like that.”

Here are a few medication take back locations on the Central Coast: Central Avenue Pharmacy in Pacific Grove; Carmel Drug Store in Carmel; CVS pharmacies across the Central Coast will provide envelopes for you to send off old syringes and meds; Alisal Drug Store in Salinas and CSUMB in Seaside. There are more locations on the Monterey County Health Department website.

Several local law enforcement agencies also do drug take back events throughout the year, we always give you that information here at News Channel 5, so keep an eye out for those as well.

If you have a question or concern, contact me at ‘DearJon@KIONRightNow.com. I’m also on Facebook ‘Jon Brent KION’ and Twitter ‘@DearJonKBrent.’