Stopping the opioid epidemic starts with removing risk from our homes.
Why dispose?
To protect your family and your community:
- Every 10 minutes a child visits the emergency room for medication poisoning
- Three in five teens say prescription pain medication is easy to get from their parents’ medicine cabinet
- 12.5 million people age 12 and older misused opioids in the last year
How do I safely dispose?
Find a year-round approved opioid collector near you on our interactive Opioid Disposal Map.
Find a medication Take Back Event in your community.
Use your household trash as a last resort.
Step 1
Mix opioids (do not crush) with used coffee grounds or kitty litter in a plastic bag and throw in household trash.
Step 2
Scratch out personal information on prescription label and dispose of original medicine container.
Do not flush your opioids
While flushing medications down the toilet may seem like a safe way to dispose, this leads to pharmaceuticals being discharged into our surface and groundwater. Managing unused, unwanted, and expired medications is a safety as well as an environmental concern.