11 answers

Recycling

I need info on how to recycle odd items.
Such as old medicine. I dont want to throw old birth control pills down the toilet, where they end up in our water supply.
same as a dumpster, they will eventually end up underground in the water table.
I heard there was a "proper" way to recycle these and want to know what it is.
Also how do you recycle broken TVs and vacuums?
Thanks

2 moms found this helpful

What can I do next?

Featured Answers

I just looked this up the other day! The website I found recommended throwing the old pills into a bag with cat litter and then into the dumpster. They advised to not put them in the toilet for the very reason you said and the cat litter is to keep someone from digging them out and using them.

More Answers

Check out www.earth911.com
I'm not sure about medications and such, but there seems to be a lot of info. on there about how to safely discard things, and/or find a way to recycle certain part of things.

1 mom found this helpful

I believe you can take old medicine to a pharmacy or to your doctor's office to dispose of properly.

If you have a membership at Costco they will take old medications and make sure they are disposed of properly. Please don't dump any medications in the toilet. It affects our water supply. The TV and Vacuum I'm not sure how to dispose of it but you may want to look into 1 800 Got Junk.

I was a pharmacy tech for 15 yrs at various pharmacies around Tucson. When folks brought us tablet meds to dispose of, the usual procedure was to add a bit of water to whatever container they were given to us. That container was then thrown into the trash. Liquid meds were opened and dumped into our trash can. Most folks presumed we had a special way of disposal, but there is no magic place to put them.

I'm not sure about tv's and vaccuums, but as for med's take them to your local pharmacy and they will dispose them for you.

I would take any prescriptions or other pharmaceuticals back to your drug store and ask the pharmacist what to do with them. If they offer to take them to dispose of for you, ask them what they do with them as well. Broken TVs can be taken to the dump and put in with the computers they have in the recycling area. Not sure what to suggest about the vacuum except maybe donate it to the Beacon Foundation and maybe they can rebuild and sell it for charity. It's frustrating to want to recycle and not have the facilities for such - even worse to find out that a lot of what we do "recycle" gets dumped in the land fill anyway. The best thing to do is begin to practice reduced consumption whenever possible. Every little bit of plastic packaging we can avoid the better our earth will be in the future. Good luck.

Town of Gilbert has a hazardous waste drop off center for things like medicine, old TV's old chemicals, paints, etc.. Just look it up on-line at Town of Gilbert. I'm sure other communities do, too. I dropped some stuff off at Town of Gilbert's facility, and it was really easy.

I just looked this up the other day! The website I found recommended throwing the old pills into a bag with cat litter and then into the dumpster. They advised to not put them in the toilet for the very reason you said and the cat litter is to keep someone from digging them out and using them.

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