Kinney Drugs to collect unused drugs from customers

BURLINGTON, Vt. A Kinney Drugs store in Vermont will help prevent pollution this week by staging a Medicine Collection Day event to collect customers’ unused medications.

Kinney announced Thursday that its store at 308 Shelburne Road in Burlington, Vt., would collect customers’ unused and expired medications on Saturday for destruction to prevent accidental poisonings, substance abuse and environmental pollution.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, as many as 80% of substance abusers said they took medications that belonged to a friend or relative, while the Associated Press reported in March that pharmaceuticals have been found in the drinking water of at least 41 million people in the United States.

“Public safety remains one of our top priorities and commitments to our local communities,” Kinney Drugs director of pharmacy operations Michael Duteau said in a statement. “Improperly disposing of medication can still pose a serious threat to the safety of the public, and Kinney Drugs urges the community to use the Medicine Collection Day event as a means of disposal for expired or unused medications. After our pharmacists sort the substances, they will be properly destroyed by law enforcement or disposed of at a federally licensed facility.”