Area residents who are sitting on unused prescription medicines now have another option for disposing of them. The South Jacksonville Police Department recently installed a drug take-back box in the department’s lobby.
South Jacksonville Chief of Police Eric Hansell says the drug drop-off box is a program through Inmar Intelligence that came at no cost to the department. “It didn’t cost us anything for the container or to dispose of it. Nothing for shipping or to ship it back.
It’s provided free of charge by these drug companies. Per statute they have to collect this merchandise that is old and dispose of it properly so it’s not getting flushed down the toilet or going into the landfills and contaminating our water supplies or water sources.”
Hansell says the program works with most prescription drugs, however, there are some things that cannot be dropped off. “Basically it’s a program where people who have unused prescription medications, pills, inhalers, stuff like that, they can bring it into the P.D. and dispose of it here for free.
They don’t take needles, hypodermic syringes, or anything like that. Herbal remedies, or vitamins and supplements, it’s just prescription meds. It gets dropped off in the box Monday through Friday eight to noon and one to five when the lobby is open. Then when we get the bin full we ship it back to the drug companies and they incinerate it and get rid of it.”
Hansell says he felt there was a large need for another drug drop-off box in the area, as the only one he was aware of was in the lobby at the Jacksonville Police Department. “Our residents down here didn’t have a box so they would have to drive all the way up to Jacksonville P.D.
So this gives another source for residents, not just of South Jacksonville, but Morgan County and Jacksonville if they are closer to us and they don’t want to drive all the way uptown. Bring it down here and drop it in our program and we’ll get rid of it for you. It will save you a trip of trying to take it to a pharmacy or somewhere like that.”
Hansell says the drop-off box is totally anonymous to use, just bring in unused prescription medicines in and drop them in the slot. There is no registration or check-in required.
The box is available during office hours at the South Jacksonville Police Department located at 1810 Sequoia Drive.