The simplest ideas are often the best. To manage the safe and environmentally sound disposal of community pharmaceutical wastes, several Oklahoma counties have installed pharma drop boxes at popular locations, in shopping malls and at public buildings.

There are vast quantities of pharmaceutical wastes from the community comprising both prescription and non-prescription medicines. Most languish for far too long in medicine cabinets – with an attendant risk of accidental child poisoning or even suicide – and eventually make their way to domestic refuse of, worse, to the toilet.

We have long lauded the US approach to periodic collection schemes and pressed for their adoption here, along with improved and restricted prescribing, to minimise waste and ensure correct disposal to take thewse products out of an ineffective wastewater treatment porocess.

Drop boxes are used in many situations, for return DVDs and videos, as bank night safes, even drop boxes for unwanted babies, so why not for pharma waste? The can be safe from pilfering – ask the banks – and will permit low-cost and effort-free collections with minimal space. Neat and tidy, the collected wastes will go straigt to incineration, so in reality the occasional disposal of some associated or inappropriate waste is unliklely to be a problem. Capex and space issues are unlikely to be a problem. This approach is far mor likely to be successful than returns to the chemist, who rarely want unwanted drug waste as they are not properly funded for disposal, and in some areas might be accompanied by secure sharps of blades disposal facilities.

Undoubtedly far mor convenient and thus more likely to be successful that community recycling facilities that themselves generally will not accept pharma wastes and are too far to travel for those with just a handful of pills and potions, this