Pharmaceutical Waste
Listening to the Zoom conference about the dangers of pharmaceutical waste was very eye opening. I had never really thought about where all of the population’s leftover prescriptions go after they are done with them. Now, I see the importance of patient education on disposing of unwanted medications.
There are many reasons why someone needs to dispose of medications. Some of these reasons are no longer needing the medication, an allergy to a medication, a doctor overprescribing medication, and changes in doses of medications. I was surprised that the FDA used to say that flushing all pills was okay. Now, we are seeing our environment suffer from these practices. Pharmaceutical waste also comes from the drugs excreted in the population’s urine. One of the slides in the presentation talked about how frogs and other wildlife are having reproductive issues due to oral contraceptives. This was really surprising to hear but it makes sense. I also learned that CVS and Walgreens have drop boxes where patients can give their prescriptions and it is disposed of correctly. As dental hygienists, we do not handle a lot of prescription drugs, but we do handle local anesthetic and needles which we dispose of in sharps containers.
We can provide information to patients while doing medical history. Dental hygienists can tell patients where to dispose of prescription medications. Some of these places include drug take back locations, pharmacies, DEA drug take back days, and police stations. A lot of our patients have asthma. In the clinic, albuterol is a popular short acting beta agonist. Albuterol comes in inhalers. I think it would be a good idea to ask the patient how they are disposing of these inhalers. If they are just throwing old inhalers into the trash this causes the medication to leak out and harm the environment. You should tell the patient to call their local waste and recycling facility. You could also tell them that some pharmacies will take back old inhalers, but to call and check first. I think the patients and environment will benefit from this conversation. I think it will also make the patient more mindful of how they are disposing of their other medications.
Altogether, I think that the pharmaceutical waste zoom presentation was enlightening. The dental field contributes to a lot of waste in the environment. I think it would do the environment a lot of good if we incorporated this into patient education. Patients should be made aware of how to properly dispose of medications.
