[Pharmwaste] Tompkins County NY collection preliminary results

[Ed Gottlieb]

The Coalition for Safe Medication Disposal (CSMD) formed to organize our
areas first unwanted household pharm waste collection.  The CSMD
includes representatives from the Tompkins County Health Department,
Tompkins County Solid Waste Management Division, Cornell University,
Lifelong (a seniors group), the Community Coalition for Healthy Youth,
Tompkins County Area Transit (TCAT), and the Ithaca Area Wastewater
Treatment Facility.  

The TCAT garage was a perfect drive though location.  We had good
weather.

This past Saturday’s collection was a huge success, exceeding all of
the organizers expectations. 

We had 509 vehicles pass through in the six hours we were open.  That's
1.4 vehicles per minute.  Total time from entrance to exit was generally
five minutes or less.  We had close to one percent of the regions
population participate in the event.  According to Census estimates,
there are 37,749 households in Tompkins County.  It is safe to say this
event was utilized by more than 1.35% of the areas households.     

We filled 22 barrels with collected medications plus 20 cases of
medicated IV's.  The gross weight of material incinerated was 1970
pounds.  Net weight collected was 1741 pounds.  Quite a bit of the
paper/cardboard packaging was recycled.  Even subtracting the 632 pounds
of IV bags brought in by one household (!), we collected 1109 pounds of
pills, ointments, liquids, powders, etc.  Average weight dropped off per
participant was in line with other events. 

Some medications collected, including a large bottle of oil of hemlock,
were from 1915-1930.  

If you would like to see a photo of some old bottles and other photos
of the event please email me with “photos” in the subject line. 
Thanks!

Part way into the event, someone had the idea to weigh every vehicles
contribution.  379 of the 509 loads were weighed.  Please let me know if
you would like this detailed data by mentioning “data” in your
subject line.  Thanks!

We had participants answer four survey questions before dropping off
their medications.  
1. How did you hear about this event?  
           Newspaper	                68.10%  (About four
stories/letters, placed stickers on the cover for two days
                                                               ahead of
the event and got one free half page advertisement.)
           Flier or poster      	19.70%  (This response probably
includes the three banners we used.)
           Radio 		18.90%  (2 different PSA’s on 8
stations + 2 radio interviews.)

2. What would you have done with these medications if you hadn't heard
about this event?
	Flush or wash them down the drain     10.35% 
                Continue to hold on to them                 55.95% 
                Throw them in the trash                       26.21%

3. Why do you want to get rid of these medications?
	Medication expired                                              
 50.00%
                Did not want anyone else to use it		4.06% 
                Safety for myself & household 		4.55% 
                Stopped using or don't need this medication 	28.57% 
                Protect environment 			 5.03% 
                Don't know				 0.81% 
                Deceased 				 2.27%

4. What city, town or village do you live in?  (Participation was
roughly proportional to population distribution.)

Since we treated all collected material as a controlled substance we
did not have to separate medications by type.  For informational
purposes, we decided to do a random sample inventory.  We used
ReturnCo’s inventory system.  We were slow to get started do to
on-site technical difficulties (someone added a password requirement to
the LAN and cables had to be located to hard wire into the system). 
Once we were on-line the system worked great.  Bar code scanners allowed
some items to auto populate the data base fields.  Pill counts were then
added.  Three pharmacists and one sixth year pharmacy student were
assisting.  Each pharmacist worked with two volunteers, one who scanned
or read labels and the other who did the data entry.  We inventoried 57
vehicles and could easily have done twice as many if we had the system
working at all three sort tables from the start.  Compiled results do in
soon.  Please let me know if you would like this data by mentioning
“inventory” in your subject line.  Thanks!

Everything was cleaned up one hour after the doors closed.

Our total budget was $3000 (includes a $500 donation from a waste
hauler.)
Some supplies were donated.  A very large number of hours were
contributed, including paid staff hours not included in the budget.

Our only disappointment is that one of the permitting agencies would
not allow us to include sharps in our collection.  The members of CSMD
felt sharps could have been safely collected and it would have been an
appreciated public service.

Here is a link to a post event story in our local paper:
http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20100308/NEWS01/3080361/Pharmaceutical+collection+event+draws+hundreds


Ed Gottlieb
Pretreatment Coordinator
Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Facility
525 3rd Street
Ithaca, NY  14850
(607) 273-8381
egottlieb at cityofithaca.org