Left over pet medications

I would contact a shelter or rescue organization to see if they might be able to use them!

That's what we tried to do with Banshee's meds, but the shelter refused to take them. One of my sister's cats is on thyroid meds and it was the exact same drug with the exact same dosage. She was glad to get them.

Banshee was also on Prednisone for asthma and we threw it away. I hated to do it, but our vet won't take any meds back and the shelter turned us down cold.

It isn't a good idea to "throw" any meds away, human or animal. I would ask the vet first and if they won't take them I would ask my pharmacy. Here in Canada any pharmacy will take any expired or left-over drugs back. They do not want us throwing them out so that they end up in landfill sites.

I saw a segment on one of the news shows about this awhile back. They are finding measurable amounts of antibiotics and antidepressants in tap water. Of course that can lead to all kinds of problems for people who are allergic or taking medications that don't mix with the ones in the drinking water. It also adds to the problems with antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.

Most veterinarians I have worked for would take them back but just threw them away in the correct way.

The rescues I have worked for could not LEGALLY use meds that where not directly given to them by a licensed veterinarian. I am not saying this is a right or wrong policy. I am just saying that is my experience.

When I was volunteering at the shelter over the weekend, a couple came in to donate some of their dog's items. It had recently passed, and among the items they donated was old medication. The shelter still took it, and said they'd ask the vet on staff if it would be usable.

Even if the shelter/vet cannot use it, they probably will properly dispose of it for you.

Look at it this way. The shelter has no way of knowing for sure if the medication in the bottle is what is on the label. A truly evil person could take some very serious poisons and put them in a bottle of a medication the shelter really could use, due to the expense.

That said, our shelter accepts out-of-date medications from the local vets and uses them, especially flea medications.

Gail..... I, too, would contact the shelter and see if they can use them. I am sure they would appreciate it.

I have been able to return blister packs to the vet when it was apparent that she would not be able to swallow anything. I have usually knew someone who had multiple cats and offered it to them if it was something rare and shortdated(hey you have a cat on xyz?), otherwise with this many I keep anything I don't use for that one cat on hand tho I know I am not the norm with being able to reuse on another cat.

The big shelters may turn it down but may want to try the smaller rescues as they may be able to find a cat owner willing to take it

I would take them to a pharmacy and ask them to dispose of the medication safely.

Please do not throw it in the garbage or down the toilet or sink. That creates a toxic environment in our land and water.

You can ask shelters if they could us them. Or you can give them back to the vet. That's what we did with Lynxx's food and meds.

Everything I've read said to send old meds to the landfill (if you can't find anyone who can use them) . What do you think the pharmacy does with them? Sanitary landfills are made so that bad stuff can't leach out. Flushing is bad. . .that gets into the ground water.

The info I've found is:
Mix the meds with water and something nasty and inedible, like coffee grounds or used kitty litter (to keep kids and animals from getting into it). Put the mess in a plastic bag or container and place in the garbage.

Right from the FDA: http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/cons.../ucm101653.htm

But if you find a pharmacy or hospital with a drop-off service, that would be best.

From Health Canada who recommends: "Do not put expired or unused pharmaceuticals in the garbage or down the toilet or sink."

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/iyh-vsv...efaire-eng.php

Even our hospitals don't toss medications down the drain or into the trash anymore. We use special plastic locking bins that are treated as hazardous and disposed of in a safe manner. I can't say for sure what that manner is but from what I heard at the hospital, they are safely incinerated.

I do not believe that in Canada prescription pills are sent to a landfill. The powers that be are always preaching and adamant about not flushing them or throwing them in the trash. You may find that even in the US they are doing things differently now that what you found and posted. That may be an old way of disposing of them.

I've never seen any other advice on how to dispose of old meds . I'm not sure if incinerating meds is any better, as there's probably drug residue in the ashes, and then the ashes would have to be disposed of somehow. Or the drugs would go up in the smoke and come down again in the rain. It's a real problem, I know, but I don't know what else can be done.

The shelters here will not accept them either. My vet will take them back but what really becomes of them is anyone's guess.

I can't believe the US would be so blase about something like this.

The link Willowy posted was updated on April 14, 2011...
Quote from that site
Disposal instructions on the label are part of FDA's "risk mitigation" strategy, says Capt. Jim Hunter, R.Ph., M.P.H., senior program manager on FDA's Controlled Substance Staff. When a drug contains instructions to flush it down the toilet, he says, it's because FDA, working with the manufacturer, has determined this method to be the most appropriate route of disposal that presents the least risk to safety.

Drugs such as powerful narcotic pain relievers and other controlled substances carry instructions for flushing to reduce the danger of unintentional use or overdose and illegal abuse.

For example, the fentanyl patch, an adhesive patch that delivers a potent pain medicine through the skin, comes with instructions to flush used or leftover patches. Too much fentanyl can cause severe breathing problems and lead to death in babies, children, pets, and even adults, especially those who have not been prescribed the drug. "Even after a patch is used, a lot of the drug remains in the patch," says Hunter, "so you wouldn't want to throw something in the trash that contains a powerful and potentially dangerous narcotic that could harm others."

Despite the safety reasons for flushing drugs, some people are questioning the practice because of concerns about trace levels of drug residues found in surface water, such as rivers and lakes, and in some community drinking water supplies. However, the main way drug residues enter water systems is by people taking medications and then naturally passing them through their bodies, says Raanan Bloom, Ph.D., an environmental assessment expert in FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "Most drugs are not completely absorbed or metabolized by the body, and enter the environment after passing through waste water treatment plants." end of quote

Belive it or not sewage goes through that many different treatment processes itself breaks down alot of the stuff in the water anyway,one of the few it can't is hormones that people taken for hrt or the pill,those do build up in the water system and can't be broken down and affect the growth an reproduction of fish and othere aquatics.But the main contributor to build up of chemicals are businesses who release their waste effluent of manufacturing processes into waterways that don't go through the wastewater treatment process and run directly out to sea untreated.
Business waste=dollars=allow thousands of litres of waste everyyear into the sea untreated ..so afew pils to the FDA is a grain of salt in the sea i would think which might explain their blaseness

my vet used to take back an refund for tablets that weren't used as long as they were still in the blister pack they could use them,but opened liquids degrade once opened and like another poster said,they can't be sure what's in the open bottle,But any lotions like ear lotions or skin lotions I use to take mine to the petaid hospital,they would use them in the past but I' not so sure now because they use to re-use the child friendly containers an i use to collect them from people an donate them but they stopped doing that because they couldn't sterilise the bottles sufficiently to make sure there were'nt and drug residues.

Ecologically speakin the best way to make use of the drugs would be to use them for what they were intended,if nobody wants to use them for that then I would return them to the vet and get a refund on the unopened ones..

You're right..even incinerating the plastic bottles would give off toxic arsenic fumes..but compared to the amount of stuff incinerated by hospitals and doctors surgerys,the odd bottle we dispose of is minimal in comparison.

I guess only our great grandchildren and beyond will know the consequences of these actions. I'm personally glad that in Canada the drugs are disposed of in a better manner than flushing/landfill.

But what is that "better manner"? Like I said, I'm not sure incinerating them IS better (if that is in fact what's done with them in Canada), although I'd like to see a comparative analysis done to know for sure.

If you put the meds in a plastic container or bag, that container/bag won't decompose for thousands of years in a sanitary landfill (anaerobic conditions). I think the meds in that plastic would be the least of our great-grandchildrens' concerns .

Where did you get the information that the drugs were put in plastic bags in landfills or did I just miss that information in one of the posts?

That's the advice in the FDA information (for non-flushable meds)---to mix the meds with something yucky, then place in a plastic bag or container and place the bag/container in the trash.

Oh, I thought you had been referring to the Canadians putting the meds in plastic bags and putting that in landfill. I didn't realize you were talking about the US when you made the original statement that I questioned.