Spring Cleaning: What You May Be Forgetting Inside Your Medicine Cabinet

I’m not much of a housekeeper. During most of the calendar year, I don’t typically feel any uncontrollable urges to clean the house. I don’t mind clutter.

But isn’t there something primal about spring cleaning? As the season changes, flowers bloom, the birds sing, and warm temperatures finally arrive, even I sometimes want my house to feel new again as well. It’s a biochemical urge. Suddenly you start to notice the windows in the bright spring sun that need cleaning, the dusty bookshelves, and the door that needs painting.

As an OTC Safety blog ambassador, there’s another part of spring cleaning that you may not think about that I want to mention: cleaning out your medicine cabinets.

April 26th is National Drug Takeback Day. Cleaning out your medicine cabinet means getting rid of unwanted or expired medications (both prescription and over-the-counter) and disposing of them safely. To find the locations of collection sites near you, click here.

To learn more about how to get rid of medications safely, particularly if there isn’t a collection site near you or you can’t make it to Drug Take Back Day, you can turn to this FDA post. It explains that we should read carefully any disposal instructions on the medicines, and the FDA cautions consumers about flushing most medicines down the toilet or sink. To dispose of most medicines safely:

• You should mix them with yucky substances such as coffee grinds or kitty litter, in order to make them less appealing to pets and children and less obvious to those looking for drugs in the trash.
• You should also put the mixture in a sealable bag or empty can before throwing it away.

Here’s more information in the graphic about National Drug Takeback Day:

This is my final post as an OTCSafety ambassador. I hope you’ve learned a bit about how to read labels, store, and dispose of these medications safely.

Finally, I thought I’d share with you some of my favorite OTCSafety posts from the last year:

Summer Survival Kid for Life With Kids (Using Sunscreen Safely)

Oral Care and Toddler Brushing Battles 

Back to School Homework for Parents: Keeping Kids Healthy

Thanks so much for learning along with me! To keep getting more tips, make sure that you’re following OTCSafety on Twitter and Facebook.