Drug disposal

Leftover medication is worth getting rid of properly. Unused prescriptions in a cupboard are the most common source of accidental poisoning in children and of medication being taken by someone it was not prescribed for.

The best option: a take-back site

Take-back is the option to use if you can. Many pharmacies, hospitals and police stations host a permanent collection kiosk that accepts medication with no questions asked.

• Find one near you with the DEA’s public locator at deadiversion.usdoj.gov, or call your local pharmacy and ask.
• The DEA also runs National Prescription Drug Take Back Day twice a year, with temporary collection points in most areas.

[TO CONFIRM: whether this pharmacy hosts a take-back kiosk or offers mail-back envelopes. If you do, say so here — it is the most useful thing on this page.]

If you cannot reach a take-back site

For most medicines, in your household rubbish — not the toilet, and not the sink:

1. Take it out of its container but keep the container to deal with separately.
2. Mix it with something unappealing — used coffee grounds, cat litter, dirt. Do not crush tablets or capsules.
3. Seal the mixture in a bag or a tub so it cannot leak.
4. Put it in the household rubbish, not the recycling.
5. Scratch out your name, the prescription number and the medication from the label before you throw the empty container away.

The few that should be flushed

A small number of medicines are dangerous enough in a single dose — to a child, a pet, or anyone they were not prescribed for — that the FDA advises flushing them immediately if no take-back option is available. These are mostly strong opioids.

Check the FDA’s flush list at fda.gov before flushing anything, and flush only what appears on it. Everything else does more harm in the water supply than in a sealed bag in the bin.

Fentanyl patches

A used patch still holds enough drug to kill a child or a pet. Fold each one so the sticky side seals against itself, then flush it — patches are on the FDA flush list. Do this as soon as you take one off.

Sharps, needles and pens

Never in the household rubbish or the recycling. Put them straight into an FDA-cleared sharps container, or a heavy plastic container with a screw lid if you have nothing else, and dispose of it through a sharps programme.

[TO CONFIRM: whether you sell sharps containers or run a collection programme, and where local sharps drop-off points are.]

Compounded preparations

Treat them like any other medication: take-back if you can, otherwise the sealed-bag method. Creams and gels go in the bin the same way — never rinse them down a drain.

Before you throw anything away

Call a pharmacist on 832-886-4296 and check. There are two questions worth asking:

• Is it actually finished with? Some medicines are meant to be kept for occasional use, and an expiry date is not always the end of usefulness.
• Is it on the flush list? Worth thirty seconds if there is any opioid in the house.

If someone has taken a medication that was not theirs

Call Poison Control on 1-800-222-1222, available 24 hours across the United States. If the person is unconscious, struggling to breathe, or having a seizure, call 911 first.

For an animal, call your veterinarian or an animal poison control line immediately — several human medicines that are harmless to us are toxic to cats and dogs.