Julie Becker... says smaller healthcare practices may dispose of occasional amounts of pharmaceuticals by mixing them with used coffee grounds, tea leaves or kitty litter, double bagging the mixture in plastic and simply tossing it in the trash.  Larger practices should turn to their commercial waste haulers for guidance. “I have found from my research that when people don’t know what to do with things, they put them in the sharps container, which really isn’t the right way to go,” she said. Practices that accept unused pharmaceuticals from patients and then properly dispose of the drugs deserve a gold star, she added.

 

Becker encouraged physicians to push pharmaceutical companies to do away with the practice of dispensing drug samples, encouraging them to instead provide vouchers that patients may redeem at their pharmacy. She said Maine and Minnesota are successfully making such trial programs work.

by Sharon H. FitzGerald