Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele and the Police Chiefs of Montgomery County announced the next prescription drug Take Back Day, scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 28, 2017,  at 41 locations throughout Montgomery County.  The full list of participants can be found here.

Upper Dublin Police Department, 801 Loch Alsh Ave., Fort Washington, PA 19034,  Whitpain Township Police Department, 960 Wentz Rd., Blue Bell, PA 19422 and Lower Gwynedd Township Police Department, 1130 N. Bethlehem Pike, Spring House, PA 19477, are all participants on October 28.

According to the Montgomery County District attorney’s Press release:

This fall’s Take Back Day—which coincides with the DEA’s nationwide Take Back Day—is a chance for Montgomery County residents to clean out their medicine cabinets of unwanted, unused and expired prescription medications and dispose of them easily in a safe and environmentally friendly way.

Ridding medicine cabinets of these medications is an important step in combatting the opioid and heroin epidemic, which often begins with prescription medicines taken from a home medicine cabinet. It is also a way to make sure our water supply remains safe and healthy by keeping unwanted medicines from being flushed into the water supply or disposed of through trash collections.  At the spring 2017 Take Back Day in Montgomery County, a record 7,204.4 pounds were collected. That success comes after a record 2016 when nearly 12,000 pounds or six tons of unwanted or expired medications were collected. These numbers are from both unwanted prescription and over-the-counter medications collected that day through resident drop-offs as well as the amounts collected by police departments through their permanent prescription drug disposal boxes. More than 35,000 pounds of medicine has been collected since the program began in 2010. “Getting 7,200 pounds of unwanted and unneeded prescription drugs turned in for safe disposal during April’s Take Back Day shows that there is a growing awareness of the need to get these medicines out of the house and safely disposed of. It also shows that there are far too many medicines being prescribed,” said Steele. “Collecting unwanted medications is just one way the District Attorney’s Office and law enforcement in Montgomery County are working together to combat drugs in our communities and decrease overdose deaths. We’re asking all residents to do their part by cleaning out their cabinets of unneeded medications.” The participating sites, listed below, will be staffed by police officers. The sites will accept prescription and over-the-counter tablets and capsules, liquid medications, inhalers, creams and ointments, nasal sprays and pet medications. Not accepted are intravenous and injectable solutions as well as needles. Prescription medicines can be in their original prescription bottles with the label removed or can be placed in plastic bags.

In addition to this scheduled Take Back Day, unwanted medications can be dropped off and disposed of throughout the year at more than 50 permanent prescription drug disposal boxes. Ambler Borough Police Department has a drug disposal box in it’s lobby throughout the year.  The complete list of permanent locations can be found here.