Indiscriminate disposal of date-expired or unused drugs into trash or waterbodies is said to be one of the primary reasons for the chemical contamination of environment.
The active pharmaceutical ingredients in powerful antibiotics like ciprofloxacin or erythromycin and synthetic hormones in drug formulations which are disposed of carelessly, find their way into soil or drinking/ground water and eventually back into food chain.
This is identified as one significant causes for the increasing levels of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in environment. AMR containment is recognised as a priority by the Health Department.
In an effort to tackle the unsafe disposal of drugs at household level, the State Drugs Control Department is now launching a community drug take back programme so that date-expired or waste drugs is collected from the community, taken to a safe location and disposed properly.
Joint initiative
Programme on Removal of Unused Drugs (PROUD) will be a joint initiative of the department and All Kerala Chemists and Druggists’ Association (AKCDA) and will be launched on a pilot basis in Thiruvananthapuram first.
“The annual drug consumption in Kerala, to the tune of ₹12,000 crore plus, is the highest in the country. A significant chunk of the elderly population in the State is heavily dependent on drugs. This means that the wastage of drugs at household-level — date-expired drugs, discontinued drugs, medicines which remain unused when prescriptions are changed, ophthalmic medicines which have a short usage period — is also very high,” points out Ravikumar Menon, State Drugs Controller.
Under PROUD, special bins or safe drug collection boxes will be kept at select medical shops in the city, where people can deposit the expired or waste drugs in their houses.
The Drugs Control department has already initiated discussions with Ramky Enviro Engineers Ltd., a Telangana-based firm engaged in offering comprehensive environment and waste management services, on the logistics aspects.
Costly exercise
Nearly 90% of the drugs sold in the State are manufactured in other States and most firms do not take back unused stock or expired drugs from distributors or retailers.
Safe disposal of drugs is also a costly exercise, more expensive than manufacturing drugs.
The fact that there are no regulatory guidelines regarding what should be done with unused or expired drugs in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act compounds the issue.
