What's Happening in Olivette, MO…

The Olivette Police Department, along with Preferred Family Healthcare and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), has scheduled a drug take-back day.

Residents will be able to dispose of their medications by handing them over to officials at City Hall on the day. The event is anonymous and free, with no questions asked.

Take-back days like this are becoming more common across the country, as municipalities everywhere help residents deal with the problem of how to dispose of medications safely. Medicines that are left sitting in home medicine cabinets can be abused, misused, or taken by the wrong person, either by mistake or when someone lends medicines to another. Prescription drug abuse rates in the United States are high, and so are the number of overdoses and accidental poisonings caused by these drugs.

Also, Americans are becoming aware that throwing medicines in the trash or flushing them is both ineffective and undesirable. They can pollute the water supply and pose a threat to both animals and humans. Medicines also have expiration dates, and taking them after that can cause difficulties. In some cases, the medicines become dangerous, although in most they are simply less effective.

It takes place this Saturday, October 22, and runs from 10:00 am until 2:00 pm. Agencies like these can enhance similar events by working with flyer printing companies, who can create handouts with instructions to make it easy to recycle items.