Alameda Health System will host its first medication disposal event on Saturday, January 27th, in the Highland Care Pavilion 4th floor lobby from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. AHS is partnering with MED-Project, an organization dedicated to medication education and disposal, to bring this program to AHS.

“We’re really excited to be able to provide this type of service to the community,” said Diana Thamrin, PharmD, and AHS System Director of Pharmacy. “Keeping unwanted/unused medications in the home causes a lot of confusion. For instance, patients may take too much of a particular medication or a medication that they were told to stop by their doctor for safety reasons. This increases the likelihood of an adverse outcome for patients and can result in a hospitalization or emergency room visit. This event gives people the opportunity to clean out their medicine cabinet and dispose of their medications safely.”

People might be tempted to flush medicine down the toilet or throw them away in regular trash, but in actuality, that is not the best idea. Some medications can be harmful to the environment and even infiltrate the drinking water.

Anyone can drop off their old, expired or unused medications at the MED-Project booth.

For a list of accepted and not accepted medications visit https://med-project.org/locations/alameda/events.

Edited on June 22, 2018.