PARTNERSHIP IMPROVES REGIONAL DISPOSAL OF UNWANTED MEDICATIONS.

Mark Steingraeber1, Joseph Kruse2, and Jeff Gloyd3
1U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Fish and Wildlife Conservation 
Office, Onalaska, WI  54650.   2Mayo Health System, Franciscan Skemp 
Healthcare, La Crosse, WI 54601.  3La Crosse County Solid Waste Department, 
Hazardous Materials Program, La Crosse, WI 54601.

In western Wisconsin, representatives of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 
Mayo Health System, Gundersen Lutheran Health System, and La Crosse County 
met early in 2007 to discuss the need to establish a safe and effective means 
for county residents to dispose of unwanted medications.  This diverse team 
developed a plan for a medicine turn-in program that would utilize the 
infrastructure and compliment the services of an existing county-operated 
facility that accepts unwanted household hazardous materials (HHM) from 
residents and businesses, at little or no cost, throughout the year.  This 
HHM service is also provided to others in southwest Wisconsin, southeast 
Minnesota, and northeast Iowa.  The County Board of Supervisors unanimously 
approved the plan and authorized HHM staff, in cooperation with the Sheriff’s 
Department, to develop and implement a medication collection and disposal 
program that: meets local, state, and federal regulations; uses an 
environmentally sound means to dispose of collected medications; and operates 
on a permanent basis.  The sheriff subsequently deputized four HHM employees 
with the authority to accept and dispose of unwanted medications, including 
controlled substances.  Deputized staff began to accept medications at the 
HHM facility on 1 June.  The program filled seven 55-gallon drums with 2,180 
pounds of bulk medications for disposal in its first three months of 
operation and collected more than 2.5 tons of unwanted medications by years’ 
end.  La Crosse County HHM staff also served as the disposal vendor at one-
day medicine collections for residents of six nearby Wisconsin counties 
during 2007 and plan to expand this service to residents of Houston County, 
Minnesota, in 2008.  This is the first permanent medication collection 
program in Wisconsin and one of only a few in the nation.  The noteworthy 
success of this recently established program presents a model for the 
development of similar partnerships to raise awareness of the need to safely 
collect and dispose of unwanted medications in other portions of the country.

Keywords: medications, collection, disposal, partnership, household hazardous 
materials


Presenting author:   Mark Steingraeber
		        U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
		        555 Lester Avenue
		        Onalaska, WI  54650
		        608-783-8436 (phone)
		        608-783-8450 (facsimile)
		        mark_steingraeber@fws.gov (e-mail)

Format preference: Poster

Willing to convert: Yes