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Disposing of medication the safe way

BEVERLEA WALZ PHOTO Police Chief Jim Read shows the lock box where the department keeps pharmaceuticals that residents turn in until the items can be properly disposed of off-Island.
BEVERLEA WALZ PHOTO
Police Chief Jim Read shows the lock box where the department keeps pharmaceuticals that residents turn in until the items can be properly disposed of off-Island.

Maybe your doctor has changed your prescription, but you still have a supply of the old medication. Or you’ve suffered an injury and was prescribed pain medication but didn’t need all the pills provided. Or a family member has been on hospice care and was prescribed strong pain medication.

What do you do with the medication when they’re no longer needed?

Before environmentalists began warning about the dangers of flushing pharmaceuticals down the toilet and entering the groundwater, and addiction specialists warned of discarded pills being used by people other than those who had the prescription, many carelessly disposed of them either in their bathorooms or in garbage.

Today, Islanders have two safe choices to dispose of old medications — the Police Department and the Shelter Island Heights Pharmacy.

Both are careful to protect the privacy of those bringing in medications for disposal.

“We try not to interfere with peoples’ privacy,” Police Chief Jim Read said. He suggests those bringing in old medications remove identifying information.

So does Greg Ofrias, who operates the Heights Pharmacy.

Residents can bring medications to the police headquarters in the Center. Staffers will take them during regular business hours and store them in a locked box kept in the basement until they can be transported to Covanta, a New Jersey company that specializes in disposal of unwanted medications.

The Group for the East End, an environmentalist nonprofit concerned with protecting the area’s waterways, donated the box that looks much like a large mailbox to the police department for storing the pharmaceuticals.

At the Heights pharmacy, Mr. Ofrias maintains a box in the store and asks customers to dump old medications there. But he’s not prepared to handle controlled substances, requesting those be taken to the Police Department.

The other pills are picked up by a company specializing in proper disposal of old medications, he said.