Safe Medicine Disposal Tips for Parents

Do you & your kids know how to safely dispose of your over-the-counter meds at home? Check out these Safe Medicine Disposal Tips for Parents. This is a sponsored post. All mama-bear opinions are my own.

Safe Medicine Disposal Tips for Parents

Out with the old, in with the new. 2018 has been the year of family travel. The more that we’re out exploring, the more I realize how much more our family is thriving. Bringing those travel adventures home, I’ve been spring cleaning the house with a new look at life – less stuff, more memories. A house full of stuff is nothing, NOTHING compared to the memories we share. And as our house has gone into spring cleaning overload, (Sorry, honey, can you schedule another donation pick-up?), I’m realizing that our medicine storage has grown so large that it has overtaken our kitchen area…because I had no clue how to trash our old meds.

I know, poor excuse.

Before writing this post I had no idea how to safely dispose of medicines at home. When I was a pediatric nurse in a hospital setting, we had procedures for these types of things. But who knew that we were only a few steps and a few household items away from finally cleaning out our medicine cabinet once and for all. Let’s spring clean our medicine cabinets together with these Safe Medicine Disposal Tips for Parents…and hey, don’t forget to pour that extra cup of coffee. 🙂

How to Safely Dispose of Medicines In-Home

The good news is in-home medicine disposal of all over-the-counter medicine is safe and convenient. Follow these three simple steps from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to dispose of OTCs in your household trash:

Gather your expired/unwanted/unused OTC medicines (be sure to look closely at expiration dates on bottles and boxes!)
Mix medicines (do not crush tablets or capsules) with an unpalatable substance such as kitty litter or used coffee grounds.
Place the mixture in a container such as a sealed plastic bag.
Throw the container in your household trash.

Seriously, it’s that easy! I’ve been saving all of my K-cup grounds this week. It’s been fun explaining to my kids the safe medicine disposal process. They asked so many questions about the used coffee grounds! Then we literally just throw away our old medicines. It’s been SO therapeutic to purge the old medicines that have been gathering in our cabinets for YEARS!

Professional Medicine Disposal

Rather not deal with medicine disposal yourself. That’s ok! In addition to in-home disposal, you can also take advantage of local disposal programs and community take-back days. Check to see if your local pharmacy has a safe medicine disposal program; many have in-store disposal kiosks. There are also many local law enforcement agencies that allow the disposal of unwanted, unused or expired medication – both OTC and prescription drugs – anytime during business hours. The next U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) National Prescription Take-Back Day is Saturday, April 28.

Grab More Safe Medicine Disposal Tips from KnowYourOTCs

I take medicine safety very seriously. And now with spring cleaning underway, I’m taking medicine disposal just as seriously. Grab more tips for safe medicine disposal on the KnowYourOTCs.org site here.