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Safety Product Category

Mail-back Prescription Drug Systems

Each year health facilities are dumping at least 250 million pounds of drugs into America’s drinking water annually, and the EPA found trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in 80% of the rivers, lakes and streams they tested. So what are your patients doing with their unwanted and unused meds? What are you and your patients doing with unused medications? There are new products to assist in destroying them properly.

What do you do with left-over prescription drugs? If you leave them in the medicine cabinet, you might be opening the door to diversion–the use of prescription drugs for recreational purposes. Even though you’re not currently using the drugs, that does not mean someone else isn’t. Seventy five percent of people who abuse drugs say they obtained them from friends or relatives (according to the National Safety Council).

Drug abuse isn’t the only risk associated with unused medications. Last year the second leading killer (behind automobile accidents) of 35-54 year old adults in the U.S. was accidental overdose according to the CDC. Unused medications are dangerous for everyone.

And those medications aren’t just a problem for humans. Not only does flushing unused meds down the drain or throwing them in the garbage pollute drinking water, pharmaceuticals are linked to bizarre mutations in fish, frogs and water fowl. The Associated Press recently reported the EPA found trace pharmaceuticals – including antidepressants, birth control and narcotics – in over 80% of the water samples they tested, affecting at least 46 million Americans.

So what can you do to help prevent prescription and over-the-counter drug misuse while protecting our water supply and curbing damage to the environment? Use RxTakeAway™ for your non-controlled medications. It’s the safe, eco-friendly way to protect your family, community AND environment.

RxTakeAway™

  • Easy-to-Use – one container for all your discards
  • Convenient – just fill and ship
  • Confidential – no personal data is collected

RxTakeAway™ comes in a variety of sizes, depending on your needs. Programs are tailored specifically for:

  • Individuals
  • Assisted Living Facilities
  • Governments/Communities
  • Pharmacies
  • Hospices
  • Other Needs

In the home

  • One in 5 teens report abusing Over-The-Counter (OTC) and prescription drugs. Their source is primarily friends and relatives’ medicine cabinets.
  • These meds result in young people ages 12-17 abusing prescription drugs more than cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine combined.

In the environment

  • Unused meds are often dumped into the garbage or ushed into the waste stream, poisoning the environment.
  • According to the EPA, pharmaceuticals in the water system are linked to mutations in fish, amphibians and water fowl. The Sharps’ RxTakeAway™ System is the quick, easy solution to proper disposal of unwanted or unused medication, excluding controlled substances.