Three steps to take before you drop off your expired or unwanted medicines

There are three (3) additional steps people should take note of when dropping off any expired or unwanted medicines at the nearest CARiNG Pharmacy.

Firstly, only bring medicines in solid (such as a tablet, capsule, patch, sachet), liquid (such as syrup, solution), and semi-solid (such as cream, ointment) forms which are:

• Expired or with an unclear expiry date
• Spoilt or contaminated
• Content cannot be identified
• No longer required by the patient

However, a metered-dose inhaler that is packed in pressurised containers is not accepted as pressurised containers cannot be thrown into the incinerator.

Furthermore, the majority of vitamins and supplements are not required to be incinerated, hence can be thrown into the rubbish bin together with the household wastes.

Secondly, please remove all boxes, product inserts, and plastic bags beforehand. Sending expired and unwanted medicines for incineration is very costly. To lower the cost of sending goods for incineration, items that are not required to be incinerated do not need to be sent to CARiNG Pharmacy.

Thirdly, please remove any personal information from the packaging such as the name of the patient, hospital or clinic registration number, or any medical information from the medicine’s boxes or plastic bags. This is to ensure that no confidential information of patients may be accidentally leaked out and caused undesirable consequences.

When following the steps mentioned above while sending expired and unwanted medicines to the CARiNG Pharmacy, will ease the collection steps carried out by the person who handles the disposal process.