A used needle is standing point-up in a yogurt pot on the windowsill, because the trash felt wrong and nothing better presented itself. The vials you are never going to use are in the fridge door, left over from a prescription that changed. The empty carton they came in is on the kitchen counter with your name, the pharmacy's name and a prescription number printed across it.
Three separate sets of instructions cover those three objects, and every one of the three routes has a step before the bin. Take them in that order — sharp first, medicine second, packaging last — and you can clear the windowsill tonight, with a single phone call left over about where the full sharps container goes.
The needle goes into a hard plastic container that closes, straight after it is used. The vials go to a take-back box if one is near you, and into the trash mixed with something that ruins them if one is not. The carton goes in the trash as well, once the printing on it is scratched out. The full sharps container is the only one of the three whose answer changes with where you live.
What counts as a sharps container
A sharps container counts if it is heavy-duty plastic, closes with a tight-fitting, puncture-resistant lid that nothing can come back out of, stands upright and stable while you use it, does not leak, and is labeled to warn of the hazardous waste inside. An empty heavy-duty laundry detergent bottle is the household alternative FDA names when a container cleared for the purpose is not available. A yogurt pot fails on the lid and on the label. Write the warning on the detergent bottle yourself in marker, because a bottle that still reads as detergent is not labeled.
A used sharp goes into that container immediately, in the room where it was used, rather than onto a surface until later. Loose sharps stay out of the household trash, out of public trash cans, out of recycling bins and out of the toilet, and the reason FDA gives is who meets them next: trash and sewage workers, janitors, housekeepers, household members and children.
Once the container is about three-quarters full, where it goes next follows your community guidelines rather than one national rule, so the answer changes with your state and sometimes with your town. FDA sends that question to Safe Needle Disposal, on (800) 643-1643, which is an outside organization rather than a federal line.
If somebody else's used needle sticks you — one you were moving, or one you did not know was there — wash the exposed area right away with soap and water, or with rubbing alcohol or hand sanitizer, and then call your physician or the local hospital for immediate medical attention.
Medicine you are not going to use
Medicine you are not going to use goes to a take-back location if there is one near you, and into the household trash if there is not. Some pharmacies keep a drop-off box or kiosk on site, some hand out prepaid mail-back envelopes, and the Drug Enforcement Administration sponsors take-back days through local law enforcement.
If the reason you are not using them is that they arrived warm, or do not match what you were told to expect, they go back to the pharmacy printed on the label instead, and that call comes before anything is thrown out.
The trash route is a sequence, and the order is what makes it work:
- Take the medicine out of its original container.
- Mix it with something undesirable — the examples given are used coffee grounds, dirt and cat litter.
- Put the mixture into something that closes: a resealable bag, an empty can, any container with a lid.
- Put that in the trash at home.
A short list of medicines is meant to go down the toilet when a take-back option is not readily available, and everything absent from that list stays out of the sink and the toilet. What puts a medicine on it is that it is sought after for misuse and that a single dose taken by the wrong person can kill. If you cannot tell whether yours is on the list, the pharmacist who filled it can.
Check the date on the carton before you decide anything is a leftover at all. Medicine that is out of date gets thrown out rather than kept, and whether something still inside its date is worth holding on to is a question for the pharmacy that filled it rather than one to settle from the kitchen.
The empty carton with your name on it
The empty carton with your name on it goes in the trash with the printing destroyed first. Scratch out all your personal information on the empty packaging and then throw the packaging away; the reason FDA gives is your identity and your privacy, and that label carries your full name, your prescriber, the pharmacy and a number that identifies the prescription itself.
The label has to stay on the medicine right up until the medicine is thrown away. Medicine you are still taking stays in the container it came in, so that the label travels with it; the container only comes off at the point of disposal, which is the same moment the empty one turns into something to scratch out.
Clearing the windowsill
- Put the sharp into a heavy-duty plastic container with a lid that closes tight, and write a hazard warning on the outside in marker.
- Call Safe Needle Disposal on (800) 643-1643 to find out where a full sharps container goes where you live, and put the answer on the container.
- Look for a take-back kiosk at your pharmacy before you plan on the trash.
- Using the trash instead: out of its own container, into coffee grounds or cat litter, into a bag that seals, into the bin.
- Scratch out the label on every empty carton and bottle before it leaves the house.
- Ask the pharmacist which of your leftovers, if any, is on the flush list.
The sharp and the carton are both finished tonight, one under a lid and one under a scratched-out label. Where the full container goes after that is set by your community rather than nationally, so that part ends on a phone call rather than at a bin.
