Doctors are really good at telling us what to do during treatment.

Take this, use that, come back in six weeks.

But after the doctor visit?

I'm Brooke Butler, and in this episode of What Do I Do With This, to flush or not to flush?

We'll put home medical waste on the examination table.

How to properly dispose of or recycle it, and why it matters.

College of Pharmacy is a four-year doctorate program.

They are learning things like how drugs work in the body, how the body works, how diseases happen, and then how medications can be used to help with treating and sometimes even curing those diseases.

Really trying to make our communities healthy and improve quality of life for our patients.

In addition to her pharmacy work in and out of the classroom, Amy T. Meyer has spent most of her career helping St.

Louisans figure out what to do with unused medication.

There are lots of reasons why people might end up with medications that they no longer need.

Sometimes we start a medication and we have a side effect or it's not quite the right dose for what we need.

Sometimes it's something that we use on an as-needed basis and so we don't end up needing to use all of it.

And if we don't use all of it, we're like, "Well, I think maybe I'd like to save it in case I need to use it later."

And I understand that perspective, but when we use medications to treat something that we haven't had verified by diagnosis, we're potentially treating with the wrong medication, which can cause problems.

We're potentially delaying treatment of something, which could cause it to become much more serious and need more serious treatment.

For the over-the-counter, I think especially like, you know, when you're thinking about cold and flu season, and you really want like an all-in-one product, right?

The problem is, is if you get sick later and you don't have all those, quite those same symptoms, then you're having to go get something different.

So even though the pill burden might be a little bit more, I recommend buying individual agents in probably slightly smaller quantities so that really when you're sick, you can look to see what are the exact symptoms that I have, what are the medications that I have, and only take those medications to treat the symptoms that you have.

When it comes to expiration dates, Amy says storage matters.

If they've been stored in a cool, dry place, they may be okay to use a couple months after the expiration date.

Anything beyond that, it's unlikely to be harmful, but probably won't do much to relieve your symptoms.

If we're talking about safety, we want to make sure that we don't have anything in the home that could be causing an accidental poisoning.

Now, you may trust your kids, and you may have had those discussions with your kids, which everybody should, but you don't always know the full history or the full background of the friends that are coming in.

If you don't need to be using it, you're not using it right now, get it out of the home, dispose of it so that you don't have that risk of it being diverted and misused.

Luckily, St.

Louis has a lot of options for safely disposing of medications.

Twice a year, there are national prescription take-back days across the U.S., but there are also year-round options.

You may see them at major pharmacy chains like CVS or Walgreens.

However, smaller pharmacies may not have this option because of the cost associated with pickup and disposal.

Many police precincts in the St.

Louis area have a free and anonymous drug drop-off option.

And there are growing amounts of home disposal kits that you can purchase, or sometimes even receive for free, through local hospitals or medical organizations.

These efforts do add up, with roughly 600,000 pounds collected just on the National Take Back Days, and millions more throughout the year.

Now, if none of those are an option, really what you can do is you can take and dissolve the medication in water, and then put it, mix it with something undesirable.

So normally we say coffee grounds or kitty litter, and that's a deterrent for both animals and humans for the most part.

Seal it up tight and put it in the trash.

And probably don't flush it down the toilet, don't jump it down the drain.

Yeah.

Except there are a few medications that the FDA still recommends that simply for the safety of not wanting others in the home to be exposed to it because they could be very dangerous.

But for the most part, all of these other mechanisms are better for our environment and better to use.

Most of us don't think about medication after we stop taking it.

But of course, it doesn't actually disappear.

Medications are designed to act on living systems.

So when they're flushed or thrown away, trace amounts can move through wastewater systems and into rivers and streams.

And environmental health and human health aren't separate stories.

Antibiotics are of particular concern.

Research shows that environmental exposure to antibiotics can contribute to antimicrobial resistance, a problem that already causes at least 2 million illnesses and 23,000 deaths every year in the U.S.

Of course, that doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't trace back to one person or one pill.

It's the cumulative effect of millions of small, ordinary moments.

But what's striking is how much medical surplus exists along so much unmet need.

Research shows we produce and prescribe far more medication than we end up using.

Some of that is necessary.

Care isn't always predictable.

But the result is a lot of leftover supplies, equipment and prescriptions sitting in homes with no clear next step.

At the same time, access to health care and medical equipment isn't evenly distributed.

Many people delay or forgo care altogether due to cost, access barriers, insurance gaps, disability, age, or sometimes biases within the health care system.

These gaps are not random.

They disproportionately affect marginalized communities.

So you end up with a strange imbalance.

You have access in some places, shortage in others, not because people don't care, but because the system isn't really built to connect those dots.

And when systems don't account for the full life cycle of care, communities often step in to fill the gaps.

And that's where STL Help comes in.

- Well, since 2008, St.

Louis Health Equipment Lending Program, also known as St.

Louis Health, has been collecting, inspecting, cleaning, repairing and giving away home medical equipment to anyone who needs it.

We do not have any age, income or diagnosis requirements.

We do not ask for their insurance card.

This is just neighbor helping neighbor.

And we do that through people recycling and donating equipment.

So they'll get wheelchairs and they get walkers and they get rollators.

And they even get hospital beds.

Well, medical equipment, as you know, is very expensive.

So when a family member gets ill, a lot of times it's unexpected.

So rather than going to an assisted living or moving into a nursing home facility, STL Help is providing them with the equipment, thanks to donations from our neighbors, to keep them moving and mobile.

I just moved into a senior living building, and I'm used to a shower, but they have a bathtub, and I'm afraid of falling.

So I was able to get a chair, a shower chair, and that would make me feel more secure.

It's a blessing, especially when you really can't afford to get things like this, and you never think about it.

I thank God for having this facility open where, you know, they give you an opportunity then whoever the Lord wants to get right, and then you do the right thing by when you get through with the equipment, you bring them back.

But what I'm going to do that they don't know, I'm going to donate $50 today.

When people need help, and places like this can help them, you want to keep this place open.

We have free specialized pediatric home medical equipment.

It's difficult for families as they try to navigate insurance and get the kids what they need in order to be part of family, to be able to sit and have dinner with them, to be able to go to school.

We had a mom come in with her baby who was four years old, and he has in-stage renal failure.

And he'd never walked, but so we got him something that would enable him to be able to go to school like his older brothers do.

You know, the mental health aspect of this all is huge as well.

Right?

That's the important thing, helping them to be part of community, be part of life, and at the same time helping to save the environment.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We diverted just under 200 tons in 2025 and that's up from 79 tons in 2019.

So we're growing.

Everything gets washed.

That we deem is redeemable, like that we can reuse and recycle is cleaned in our shower that we have here and it gets disinfected.

Are there many items that are donated that are not deemed reusable?

Because as we say, we wouldn't want to give anything that you wouldn't give to your mother away.

It needs to be in good condition.

There is just a lot of needs and again through the generosity of the people in our community, we're able to address some of them.

Thanks for watching this episode of What Do I Do With This?

For more information on how and where to dispose of medical items, visit 9pbs.org/whatdoidowiththis.

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