ALTON - A month into Alton's pharmaceutical drop-off program, police have filled five, 30-gallon bags of drugs that people have dropped off, which now await incineration.
"It has exceeded our expectations; we've been overwhelmed with activity," Alton Police Chief David Hayes said. "It's a good thing, but it has been more labor-intensive than we anticipated."
Adding to the bulk is that people drop off the medications in containers.
Police empty the drop-off box, which resembles a mailbox, about every three days, he said. So many people have brought in outdated or unwanted pills and capsules on weekends that the box fills to the point it cannot be opened some Monday mornings.
"It has been very successful," he said.
Hayes said that of all of the quantity of drugs deposited, none is an illegal substance, although the process is anonymous.
The box was installed in the lobby of the Donald E. Sandidge Alton Law Enforcement Center late in the third week of September, with a kick-off ceremony following on Sept. 28.
The project, initiated by Illinois-American Water, is a collaboration among the water company, Alton Police Department, Alton Mayor Tom Hoechst and LeClaire Family Pharmacy (formerly Massey Pharmacy) of Alton.
Karen Cotton, spokeswoman for Illinois-American offices in Peoria, said the Alton program got a strong start, which continues.
"It's very busy. We have a lot of programs that start out like this but slow down," she said. "Alton is taking awhile to taper down; it's still going strong."
She said another drop-off box, which opened July 1 in Waterloo, also continues steadily collecting large amounts of unwanted drugs.
She said people often will black out their names and type of medication on canister labels, which is not an issue because the containers and their contents all are incinerated.
"We are trying to find a program to donate vials that would be used in Haiti and Africa to hand out medications," Cotton said. "In Africa, it would be used to give out medications to AIDS patients every day. If they give them a week's worth of medicine, they have found the people will take all the pills at once.
"We are in the beginning stages," she said.
If that alliance does not happen, Cotton said the company may seek ways to recycle the plastic containers.
The water company's motivation is to keep people from flushing medications down the toilet, washing them down a sink or putting them in the trash, so they will not end up in a landfill - all to prevent the medications from polluting the environment.
Prior to installing Alton's box last month, people had dropped off 130,000 pounds of unwanted medications at the first 12 Illinois-American sites, Cotton said previously.
The company provided Alton's drop-off box, which Cotton said cost $500, and it provided the Alton Police Department with $2,500 to cover any costs affiliated with the program.
Alton's drop-off box was the second in Southern Illinois and the 13th in the state.
Company officials held a ceremony Thursday at the St. Clair County Sheriff's Department in Belleville to open the 14th box in Illinois.
The drugs, both over-the-counter and prescription, are locked in the Alton Police Department's evidence vault. They will be incinerated at Alton Steel.
linda_weller@thetelegraph.com
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