Nurses: How many drugs get flushed down the sewers or thrown into the garbage?

I recently read that some medications are poured down the sink or tossed into the garbage in US hospitals. Is that true?

Also, do people (in general) bring their pills in to the pharmacies for disposal or do they simply flush all those pills into the sewage (DRINKING WATER) too?

Wow, really, so there isn't any legislation.

You know the fact that people pass these drugs in their urine is another matter altogether I never even considered.

Our pills, if taken to the pharmacies here in Canada, are properly disposed of by them...how I don't really know. I do know you are not supposed to flush medication but I'm sure many do.

That is pretty scary dont you think?

Thought the nurses would know best since they are the ones dispensing. Thanks for your input.

Not a nurse but I work at a pharmaceutical company. There have been cases where they find more female frogs than male frogs, because of birth control pills with their female hormones. There have also been studies of lakes and other bodies of water, finding detectable levels of Prozac and other popular drugs. It's not just from people dumping drugs, but also because any time you take a drug a portion of it will leave in your urine.

Scary indeed. At my company we can't just throw away or flush drugs, we have to give them to a waste disposal company who, I presume, destroys the drugs by incineration. Everyone is supposed to take expired drugs to the pharmacy for disposal, not flush them! Report It

I'm not a nurse but i use to pass meds in a psych facility and whenever a dr changes a patients meds, the old meds have to be destroyed. And the way they do this is they are flushed. I assume hospitals and nursing homes have the same method of destroying meds. Also, pharmacies do not accept pills back. Most people probably flush their unused pills!