Policy Document: Drug Disposal

Running head: POLICY DOCUMENT
Drug disposal
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

POLICY DOCUMENT1
Executive summary
Healthcare organizations play an active role in disposing of drugs on a wider scale, for a plethora
of reasons together with, discarded, expired drugs and having several leftover drugs. Failure in
accurately disposing of the drug often creates opportunities for people to take them in an
inappropriate manner. Inaccurate disposal of drugs has also been found to cause drug pollution.
This report illustrated that expired pharmaceuticals in general do not pose a serious hazard to the
environment and public health, however, their improper disposal is peril is owing to the
contamination of local sources of water supplies, present in nearby communities and subsequent
impacts on wildlife. Dumping of drugs is considered as a significant issue owing to the fact that
pharmaceutical pollution or drug pollution encompasses pollution of the environment with
different metabolites and medications that reach the aquatic environment such as, rivers, lakes,
groundwater, and oceans through waste water. The report also formulated a policy to be
implemented by a hypothetical organization, to ensure appropriate drug disposal.

POLICY DOCUMENT2
Table of Contents
Importance of the issue....................................................................................................................3
Literature review..............................................................................................................................4
Comparison with other jurisdiction.................................................................................................8
Project outline................................................................................................................................11
Purpose......................................................................................................................................11
Policy.........................................................................................................................................11
Procedure...................................................................................................................................11
Drug disposition will apply to...................................................................................................12
Recommendations......................................................................................................................12
Summary of recommendations..................................................................................................13
Key facts for service users.........................................................................................................14
Key facts for professionals........................................................................................................14
Feasibility..................................................................................................................................14
References......................................................................................................................................15

POLICY DOCUMENT3
Importance of the issue
Drug disposal refers to discarding of used or unused pharmaceutical drugs at the end of
particular medical treatment. Some of the major causes that contribute to addition of the harmful
drugs in the aquatic environment include sewage overflow, agricultural runoff, and aging
infrastructure (Egan et al. 2017). Organisations and individuals dispose of harmful drugs in
different ways, with several organisations lacking necessary expertise on drug disposal, and
failing to provide consistent information to their workers and consumers on the same.
Medication wastes commonly include both non-hazardous and hazardous wastes, expired
pharmaceuticals, and controlled substances. In the initial stages dumping is generally done from
production factories, where the drugs are originally created (Kennedy-Hendricks et al. 2016).
Dumping of such drugs commonly includes pharmaceutical materials and ingredients that are
unwanted, and can no longer be accurately used in the manufacturing process of the medicine.
Improper medication dumping also occurs under circumstances when medication waste
generated in large amount from different healthcare facilities such as, clinics, hospital and
pharmacies are thrown in uncovered landfills. According to Lu et al. (2016) harmful drug waste
generated from the aforementioned sources can be attributed to over-prescribing of the medicines
by hospitals. Healthcare providers often dispose drug containers, expired drugs and medications
that have been partially used.
In addition these drugs might also comprise of materials such as, vials, syringes, tubing
and intravenous bags that contain contaminated or residual drugs. Inefficiencies are also
manifested by healthcare professionals while handling and discarding hazardous medicines such
as, drugs for chemotherapy. Pharmaceutical waste involving drugs are also generated due to