Jan. 22, 2008
Proposed statewide medicine take-back bill would protect people and environment
Successful pilot take-back project helps frame state legislation
Legislation recently introduced in Olympia would establish a
statewide program that could result in the collection and safe disposal
of an estimated 66,000 pounds of expired and unwanted medicine each
year across Washington.
The proposed "Secure
Medicine Return" bill (House Bill 3064) would give residents a free and
convenient alternative to improper disposal of unwanted medicines down
the drain or in the garbage. Drug companies would establish and pay for
the program.
"Throwing prescription medicines in
the garbage, or leaving them in the cabinet always carries the risk
that they will get into the wrong hands, which could lead to drug
abuse, poisoning, or even death, while flushing them is bad for the
environment," said State Rep. Dawn Morrell (D-Puyallup), the bill's
primary sponsor and a certified critical care Registered Nurse.
"Establishing
a statewide medicine return program safeguards people and our ecology,"
said Morrell, who is Vice Chair of the House of Representatives' Health
Care Committee.
A public hearing on the proposed
legislation is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 23 at 6 p.m. in House
Hearing Room A of the John L. O'Brien Building on the state capitol
campus in Olympia.
A 2005 survey of King County
residents showed that 67 percent have medicines in their homes they do
not expect to use in the next six months. Nearly three quarters of
those polled said they would return their unused medications if it were
convenient.
Just how interested residents are in a
convenient return program is being shown in a first-in-the-nation
medicine take-back pilot project now running at all 25 Group Health
Cooperative pharmacies in six counties across the state. Some Bartell Drug stores will participate in the pilot project before it ends this October.
Collected
drugs are stored in a secure container and sent to a high-temperature
incinerator for disposal. To date, more than 4,000 pounds of drugs have
been collected.
"We have demonstrated beyond a
doubt that it's possible to establish a simple, secure and effective
medicine take-back program, with help from great partners such as Group
Health and Bartell Drugs," said Dave Galvin, a program manager for the Local Hazardous Waste Management Program in King County, which is helping to run the pilot project.
The
pilot was funded in part through two King County-sponsored grants to
the Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Center totaling $100,000,
and is scheduled to end in October.
The proposed
legislation would require drug companies to pay for and implement take
back programs for the collection and disposal of unwanted drugs from
residential sources by Jan. 1, 2010.
This
"producer responsibility" approach has been successfully used in other
regions, including British Columbia, where drug companies have been
operating the program for over 10 years. And a producer-paid recycling
program for computers and TVs is scheduled to begin throughout
Washington state in 2009.
"This bill gives drug
companies a great opportunity to step forward as good corporate
citizens," said Suellen Mele, Program Director for Washington Citizens
for Resource Conservation and one of the bill's proponents. "By taking
responsibility for the disposal of their products, these companies will
provide good customer service to Washington residents and reduce the
amount of unwanted medicines ending up in our waterways."
Disposal
down the drain leads either to a municipal sanitary sewer or a septic
tank. These systems do not treat the pharmaceuticals and the medicines
usually end up in streams or groundwater, potentially impacting aquatic
organisms. In fact, a study by the United States Geological Survey
showed pharmaceutical compounds in 80 percent of the streams surveyed
across the country.
According to a Department of
Health study, accidental poisonings have increased by 345 percent since
1990; 90 percent of those poisonings are from pharmaceuticals. In
addition, over half of the people using prescription drugs for
nonmedical reasons obtained them from a friend or relative for free,
according to the 2006 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
More
information on the proposed legislation is available at
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2007-08/Pdf/Bills/House%20Bills/3064.pdf.
For a bill summary, go to: www.wastenotwashington.org/HB3064summary.pdf.