Recycling pharmaceuticals - an environmental and humanitarian issue?

Yup, all of the above..

this actually dawned me because my sister is traveling to a 3rd-world country next month and she is telling me how difficult it is for her group (of volunteer medical professionals) to secure supplies for these extremely poor clinics.
I used to work in a retirement home where pharmacy would regularly come pick up unused meds - either d/c or the resident died, to crush and incinerate them. Seems obvious that people who can't afford the meds could use them!
Just got me thinking and starting to look up if anything like this is being done...and it was actually hard to find - CA has programs that give recycled meds to low-income pt's in their community..

I imagine it'd be very easy in hosp to return the meds to the same pharmacy and give them to someone else, that there would be a multitude of cleanliness and trust issues taking meds back from the community, but from LTC facilities and nursing homes, where meds are only touched by qualified staff...and groups like my sister's are also qualified staff ... I just don't know what the rules are...can organizations just accept them? and then who's responsibility is it to make sure they are transported and dispensed properly?

Just thinkin...

Vida

It'd be amazing if there were a pharmacy whose job was to only find and accept donated meds to recycle - to give back to places like missions.

is that always the case - they must go through foreign governments?
This must have been so frustrating for you guys!
Vida