Returning Unwanted Medication to a Chemist King Pharmacy
When was the last time you sorted through your medicine cabinet? You may have a collection of medications you no longer use or that have expired. If this is the case, you should consider doing a clean out to get rid of those unwanted medicines.
Your local Chemist King Discount pharmacy can help you with this process. All our pharmacies offer a service called Return Unwanted Medicines or The RUM Project. It’s a free and convenient way to safely dispose of your medications, funded by the Commonwealth Government through the Department of Health. Over 12 million kilograms of medicines have been disposed of through this program since it started in 1998.*
What can be disposed of?
Pharmacies can accept prescription medications, over the counter medications, vitamins and herbal supplements, gels, liquids, and creams and unused Epipens for disposal in their special bins.
It is also important to consider the medications we keep for our furry friends. Pharmacies can accept and dispose of prescribed pet medications.^
How to recycle medicines
-
Unopened, unused and out-of-date medicines should be returned to our pharmacies for disposal.
-
The cardboard box that houses the blister packs can be recycled, as can any paper inserts.
-
Inhalers should not be put in the waste bin as they contain gases which are harmful to the environment. Instead, they can be recycled at our pharmacies.
-
Do not flush medicines down the toilet.
*NPS Medicine Wise (2018). A RUM deal for unwanted medicines, retrieved from https://www.nps.org.au/australian-prescriber/podcast/episode-28-a-rum-deal-for-unwanted-medicines
^Return unwanted medicines (2023). Return unwanted medicines, retrieved from https://returnmed.com.au/