The Port Washington Water District will be once again hosting a Pharmaceutical Take Back Day on Saturday, Oct. 28 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the district’s headquarters, located at 38 Sandy Hollow Road.
The district established this event to provide residents on the Port Washington peninsula with an opportunity to safely dispose of their expired or unused prescription drugs. Residents are encouraged to bring their unused or expired prescriptions and other medications to this event as improper disposal can have a negative impact on the quality of the community’s water supply.
“We are proud to host our Pharmaceutical Take Back Day event each fall, as it provides our residents with an opportunity to safely dispose of unused pharmaceuticals,” said PWWD Commissioner Mindy Germain. “Our goal is to prevent these harmful chemicals from seeping into our groundwater. We are greatly looking forward to seeing our neighbors visit our headquarters on their way to help Do It For Port!”
Improperly disposing of pharmaceutical drugs and other controlled substances presents opportunities for foreign contaminants to seep into the water supply, raising the potential of groundwater contamination and expense on future treatment needs.
Several decades ago, it was common practice to flush unused or expired medications down the drain. For homes with septic systems, this meant creating a concentration of flushed medication in the soil around the home.
For homes connected to a sewer system, it meant that the treatment facility had to implement special treatment to remove, or attempt to remove, the potential toxins from the water before it could be discharged.
“The continued success of Pharmaceutical Take Back Day is a fantastic example of why Port Washington is such an environmentally-conscious community,” said PWWD Chairman David Brackett. “We consistently have several hundred pounds of pharmaceuticals dropped off at our facility every year, showing us that our residents take the health and safety of their environment very seriously. We are always proud to serve our community, but seeing so many of our neighbors come out in support of this every year only enhances that pride.”
All residents of the Port Washington peninsula with expired or unused medications are encouraged to take advantage of the District’s Pharmaceutical Take Back Day. To help incentivize participation, the District has
made the process extremely simple. Residents will simply pull into the District’s parking lot and toss their medications into a large collection bin. Once the event concludes, the discarded medications will be taken by the Port Washington Police and shipped to a certified disposal site.
“We like to make participation in Pharmaceutical Take Back Day as easy as possible for our residents and it doesn’t even require them to get out of their cars,” said PWWD Commissioner Peter Meyer. “We just ask that participants simply fill a disposable bag with their unused pharmaceuticals and place them into the receptacles we have out at our headquarters. It only takes a few minutes out of our residents’ busy schedules to make a positive difference in the health of the environment, and we encourage everyone who wants to take advantage of this opportunity to do so on October 28.”
The district is partnering with several local organizations and municipalities in promoting its Pharmaceutical Take Back Day event, including the Port Washington Police Department, ReWild Long Island, the Village of Baxter Estates, the Manhasset Bay Protection Committee, the Village of Flower Hill, Residents Forward, the Village of Manorhaven, the Village of Port Washington North, Kostal Paddle, the Port Washington Water Pollution Control District and the Hempstead Harbor Protection Committee.
Anyone who has questions about the event or how to dispose of prescription medications is encouraged to visit the Port Washington Water District website at: www.pwwd.org