Senior care business wants end to flushing meds down the drain

An Omaha business hopes people stop flushing prescriptions down the drain.

Home Instead Senior Care will sponsor an event from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Saturday in which people can drop off expired prescriptions and no-longer-used medicines in a parking lot on the north side of 78th and Dodge Streets. The Douglas County Sheriff's Office will incinerate the drugs.

Tracy Dale, Home Instead operations manager, said anyone can drop off their medicines, not just senior citizens or Home Instead clients. There is no charge.

"They don't even have to get out of their car," she said.

Home Instead, headquartered in Omaha, cites several reasons for conducting the event, called Operation Medicine Cabinet.

Senior citizens shouldn't hold onto expired prescriptions because they can become confused with medicines they should be taking. The drugs also can be targeted for theft. Further, conventional ways to get rid of the drugs, such as flushing them down the toilet or putting them in the trash, have been found to be an environmental problem.

Amy Wilson, director of Creighton University's Center for Drug Information, said the Home Instead event is "a responsible thing to do."

Expired prescriptions can lead to health problems, said Wilson, who has a doctorate of pharmacy. They can lose their potency, and then they cease to treat the problem for which they were prescribed. In certain cases, Wilson said, expired medicines can become toxic.

Failing to get rid of expired medicines also increases the risk that children will come upon them or that other people will treat their own afflictions with the drugs, which Wilson said is a bad idea.

Increasingly, though, experts express concern that dumped and flushed medications have the potential to befoul streams and groundwater.

Charles Krobot, associate dean of the University of Nebraska Medical Center's College of Pharmacy, said small quantities of hormones have been found in fish because they have been exposed to dumped medicines in streams and lakes.

Although harm to humans hasn't been shown, it's becoming a bigger concern. Krobot, who has a pharmacy doctorate, said Americans receive from 3 billion to 4 billion prescriptions a year.

If a person cannot dispose of unused prescriptions through a giveback, such as the one offered by Home Instead, Krobot said they should crush the pills, mix the remains with coffee grounds or kitty litter, put them in plastic bags that can be sealed and possibly wrap them in duct tape before throwing them away. Mixing them with coffee grounds makes it impossible to sort the drugs back out, he said.

"At least it's better than pouring them down the toilet," he said.

Home Instead, founded in 1994, has hundreds of independently owned franchises around the world. Dale said some franchises had held medicine givebacks. She said if this one goes well, more will be held nationwide.

• Contact the writer: 444-1123, rick.ruggles@owh.com