Water safer with disposal effort

Thursday, December 15, 2011 Share With Friend Print Article By Shannon Crawley-Serpette ntputnam@newstrib.com Dawn Conerton (left), project coordinator for Community Partners Against Substance Abuse and pharmacist Toni Lawley collect drugs at a P2D2 drop box at the Putnam County Sheriffs Department in Hennepin. The drugs collected by CPASA are incinerated so they do not end up in water sources. NewsTribune photo/Shannon Crawley-Serpette PRINCETON — Thanks to a team effort, a large number of pharmaceutical drugs won’t end up in water sources in Bureau and Putnam counties. The journey to cleaner water began several years ago when Scott Wallis, Princeton waste water superintendent, heard a program about the increasing amount of pharmaceutical drugs found in water sources. Wallis wanted to address the problem by seeing if Princeton could adopt the Prescription Pill and Drug Disposal program, called P2D2, founded in Pontiac. “It was a very important program,” Wallis said. Wallis brought the idea to Princeton Police Department, which in turn discussed it with Community Partners Against Substance Abuse, a community organization with members in Bureau and Putnam counties. From there, a number of entities worked together to establish P2D2 drop-off sites in the two counties. The first box was set up in 2010. Now, boxes are located at four locations in the two-county area — Princeton Police Department, Spring Valley Police Department, Bureau County Sheriff’s Office and Putnam County Sheriff’s Office. “That’s how it got started,” Dawn Conerton, project coordinator for CPASA, said. According to literature distributed by CPASA, a study of more than 130 waterways was conducted in 2002 by U.S. Geological Survey scientists. What they found was concerning. More than 80 percent of the waterways tested contained levels of the following pharmaceuticals — antibiotics, antidepressants, cancer drugs, cholesterol-lowering compounds, hormones used in oral contraceptives, pain killers, seizure medication and tranquilizers. That doesn’t surprise Toni Lawley, a Granville pharmacist. Before P2D2 came along, Lawley, like other pharmacists, would tell people how to dispose of their unused prescription medications. Content Continues Below “I used to tell them to flush them,” she said. The main concern for Lawley was that any unneeded drugs were disposed of — rather than sitting in a person’s house where they could accidentally be ingested by a confused patient or young child, or where they could be knowingly abused by another family member or acquaintance. In addition to the four drop boxes, several pharmacies in Bureau and Putnam counties also will accept unused medications as part of the P2D2 program. But, Lawley said, controlled substances such as narcotics, pain killers and sleeping pills, may only be dropped off at the boxes located at the police departments and sheriff’s departments. The P2D2 program has been a great success in Bureau and Putnam counties, according to Conerton. Between the four boxes in the law enforcement facilities, CPASA was able to collect 800 pounds of unwanted medications from April to October 2011. “It’s unbelievable,” Conerton said. In addition, CPASA participates in the National Take Back Day funded by the Drug Enforcement Agency. The most recent National Take Back Day was in October. “We had a fish tank that was sitting on top of a box,” Conerton said. People were invited to open their pill bottles and dump any unneeded medication into the fish tank to show the volume and variety that could accumulate in just a few hours. “I was amazed by how much we collected,” Conerton said. Following the Take Back Day, the DEA picked up the drugs and incinerated them, preventing them from eventually ending up in local water sources. Wallis, who has used the drop boxes, is pleased with the amount of pharmaceuticals that will never reach the water supply in Bureau and Putnam counties. “The program has been tremendous,” he said.