Destruction of Narcs/CS

Specialties Hospice

Published

Hi! I'm wondering if anyone has heard this lately. The CDC prefers that we dispose of these medications by flushing rather than by using the kitty litter/coffee grounds method. Reason being is that it is safer for the environment. Bags of kitty litter soaked in narcs, highly concentrated at that, is harmful for animals, etc. Another consideration is that people excrete the narcs through urination and this is obviously entering the water/sewage system, so why worry about flushing? Makes sense to me! Wondering if anyone had any thoughts on this.

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Makes sense to me too.

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Not a pharmacist or a chemist, but wouldn't the narcs being excreted through the urine be broken down into simpler forms, as though they pretty much no longer take the form of the drugs themselves? I haven't done much to speak of the issue, but I do have a bit of a problem flushing volumes of narcs down the toilet that potentially can be recycled into our water supply.

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Specializes in hospice.

I dont know about being safe for environment but I will use a diaper at times. Just pour the liq. or disolve the pill in very hot water and fill it up!! looks like a regular dirty diaper/brief, which I m sure is not good for environment, but I really don't think there is a good answer or we would be doing it already.

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Specializes in peds palliative care and hospice.

When I was doing home care (moved to inpatient) I was told to dump them into a clean diaper and then throw them out. Does anyone else do this? I was only on-call for the home care division and whenever I was on all the patients remained pulse-full :)

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Specializes in Hospice, LTC, Rehab, Home Health.

No, haven't heard of this. Still disposing of meds in the cat litter/coffee mthod.

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