PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Prescription medication drop-off boxes are available at many sites across Pennsylvania, where people can safely dispose of unwanted drugs and keep them off the streets.
St. Luke's University Health Network has just added a few more boxes, including its nearest hospital campus in Quakertown.
Rosemarie Lister, director of community health, said it's a safe and easy way to drop off unwanted prescriptions.
"They almost look like mailboxes, like the big blue mailboxes," she described. "They're in our emergency rooms, where they have surveillance and are supervised. Anyone can just go in and open up the little draw — the top drawer, like on a mailbox — and put your unwanted medications. We will make sure that they're properly disposed of."
Lister emphasized that these boxes at not only at St. Luke's.
"What you can do is go to Gov. (Tom) Wolf's website and he has an opioid dashboard. On that, you can put your ZIP code in and find out where there's a safe drug medication drop-off box located near you."
Last month during the National Prescription Drug Take Back Day, nearly 840,000 pounds of prescription pills were collected.
