If you don't swallow it, where will that pill end up?

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—To flush or not to flush? When it comes to medications, conventional wisdom once held that flushing pills down the toilet was the best way to handle old medications and keep them out of the hands of drug abusers and curious kids. But the more pills we flush, the greater our impact on fish in waterways and water-treatment plants that aren’t equipped to handle the onslaught of synthetic chemicals. So the advice shifted to throwing pills away in the land trash rather than the toilet—which led to a debate between wildlife biologists and drug-control officials as to how best to keep pills out of the hands of drug traffickers, who aren't averse to farming trash bins for unused medications they can sell on street corners. Now, instead of sifting through all the counterarguments, you can use a new website to find the best strategy for the meds you need to get rid of.

THE DETAILS: Working with the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (which operates a similar program called SMARxT Disposal with the American Pharmacists Association and Big Pharma), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration came up with a list of 12 medications that should always be flushed. They've published the list on a new website that will be constantly updated as new medications are introduced and others are pulled from the marketplace, so people will have a clear sense of when it's best to flush and when it's best to throw pills in their land trash.