(BEECH GROVE, Ind.) – Some Indiana cities are trying a faster way to get leftover meds out of the house.
Flushing medication down the toilet hurts the water supply, while throwing it in the trash or leaving it in the medicine cabinet means kids or drug abusers can still get their hands on it. Accelerate Indiana Municipalities used a grant to hand out 20,000 special disposal bags with a lump of charcoal inside. Adding water neutralizes the meds, and then the bag is safe to reseal and toss in the garbage.
Beech Grove Drug-Free Coalition executive director Dianna Hendricks says the city has distributed half its 16-hundred disposal bags, and will be handing out more at events like its back-to-school celebration and fall festival.
Some pharmacies have dropboxes, and police departments periodically hold drug dropoff days. But Hendricks says it can be inconvenient to get to those during the proper hours, which means pills may sit out in the open or not get disposed of at all.
Hendricks says the bags will hold 45 pills, or six ounces of liquid medication.
(Photo: John Tlumacki/Boston Globe via Getty Images)
