Leukemia claimed a friend of ours this summer. She was only twenty-five years old. Our families were close, and with kids in the same activities we parents spent fifteen years and thousands (yes thousands) of hours in school too: volunteering and supporting them in whatever they were doing.

Claire was a bright, shiney, gifted kid who thought that washing dishes left less of a footprint than converting to disposable styrofoam. She fought that policy change with a vengeance…. when she was in middle school. She had a good role model in her daddy: he works for the EPA.

Her parents told me that the oncologists said she was “exposed to something” that made her cells begin to mutate and when leukemia came calling Claire fought just as hard as she did in middle school. Her daddy gave me permission to tell you that during the worst of her treatments she used guided imagery: she visualized flying kites to keep her spirits up and maintain a positive frame of mind. He also smiled and thanked me for trying to help make progress with holistic / mind-body medicine because “we don’t know what we don’t know.” .

I pay a fee to dispose of hazardous materials like paint. I shred my documents to avoid identity theft. Why do I put pharmaceuticals into the trash or flush them into the groundwater? I have always thought it made no sense and detested doing it but I had no other options. I decided then and there to try to do something to honor Claire’s spirit and her memory.

I’ve been inquiring and have found many individuals who feel the way I do. I’m networking with the environmental department of public health and my local waste management department about increasing awareness of contaminating our groundwater supply by flushing old prescriptions. We’re looking for (and finding) community action programs across the country with collection programs for old prescriptions. Rivers, streams and aquifers don’t seem to have much respect for state or county boundaries. Our hope is that with enough community support a standard template for pharmaceutical disposal may evolve.

Florence Nightingale’s core values included community service and environmental issues. She recognized that a healthy environment was necessary for optimum health. This is an informational website and I need somewhere to house information about environmental stewardship. It seems fitting that they should find a home here. It may not be much, but it’s community service and that’s how Claire knew me best.

“Leading The Way To A Cleaner Water Supply” – Erie County Ohio partners with Firelands Regional Medical Center twice a year to collect unwanted prescriptions

DEA Heads First-Ever Nationwide Prescription Drug Take-Back Day
Prescription drug “Take-Back” initiative that seeks to prevent increased pill abuse and theft. DEA will be collecting potentially dangerous expired, unused, and unwanted prescription drugs for destruction at sites nationwide o n Saturday, September 25 th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time. The service is free and anonymous, no questions asked.

Are Common Pills and Plastics Feminizing Fish, Endangering People?
"The long-term consequences of hormones and endocrine disruptors in the environment will be the focus of the Tenth International Symposium on Environment and Hormones (E.hormone 2009), a four-day conference starting Oct. 21 at Tulane University that will bring together leading experts from around the world to talk about the latest research in this emerging field."

Drug disposal – Pharmaceutical and Personal Care Products US EPA

“An Introduction to Environmental Pharmacology” – Rahmin, Shahid & Gupta

No Drugs Down The Drain – American Water Works Association / US EPA / Michigan / Minnesota / California Integrated Waste Management / Los Angeles / NorthEast Recycling Council

Allen County Indiana Triad Partners with Walgreen's and Law Enforcement
Ft. Wayne Police Department
New Haven Police Department
Allen County Sherriff's Department
Indiana State Police Post
See Television Commercial

Programs Offering Continuous Drop-off Sites
Alachua County, FL
Clark County, WA
Kendall County, IL
La Crosse, WI
Olmsted Falls, OH
Southern California (Los Angeles and Orange Counties)
Washington State

Programs Sponsoring Single-Day Collection Events
Allen County IN
Monroe County IN
Bay Area Pollution Prevention Group (BAPPG) CA
Chicago, IL
Sangamon County Dept. of Public Health IL
Earth Keeper Initiative, Upper Peninsula, MI
Erie, PA
Milwaukee, WI
Northeast Recycling Council (Mass., Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont)

Mail-back Program
Maine
Education Initiative Indiana
Broad-based Initiatives in the United States
Hospitals for a Healthy Environment (H2E)
Product Stewardship Institute (PSI)
Programs in Other Countries
Australia
Canada-British Columbia
European Union