Use and Care Manual

4. Safely dispose of old and/or expired medications
Safe disposal is important to reduce risks of accidental poisoning to children or
pets, contamination of the water system, and improper or dangerous usage.
Ideally, prescription and nonprescription pills should be emptied into a single
bag and brought to a safe disposal / drug take-back location – found at most
police stations and pharmacies.
Tablets and capsules should not be flushed down the sink or toilet unless
you’re specifically instructed to do so by a pharmacist.
If you can’t get to a safe disposal location, empty all the pills into a bag, mix
them with coffee grounds, cat litter, or another undesirable substance, seal the
bag tightly, and throw it in the trash.
Creams and ointments generally can be thrown out in the trash.
To keep private information secure, be sure to scratch out personal information
on the pharmacy label before discarding old medication bottles.
5. Properly store the non-expired medications
A final but important step is to make sure your older adult’s medicines are
stored properly.
Be sure to store regularly used medications and supplements separately from
those that are only used once in a while (like cold medicine, etc.). One way is
to keep them in two separate and clearly-labeled containers.
Heat, light, and humidity can impact the quality of medications and cause
decreased effectiveness.
The best location to store medications is a cool, dry cabinet away from heat,
humidity, direct sunlight and out of reach of children and pets.
The traditional bathroom medicine cabinet ISN’T a good place because of the
exposure to heat and humidity.
Similarly, near the stove or oven or in direct sunlight are also bad places to
store medications.