Dispose of medicine and packaging safely

Sometimes it appears that the word recycling is overused and more of an inconvenience than a genuine need for care with disposal of items no-longer required.

In the case of medicine, an organisation known as SIGRE has safe collection points for unused medication and also the packaging that it came in and there are convincing reasons why these should be used.

Although there is an urban myth than in cities, you are never more than a couple of metres away from a rat, there is little doubt that you are rarely more than 500 metres from a farmacia in Spain with their green flashing crosses often blinding drivers at night.

Safe disposal of packaging

Thus in most pharmacies, you will find a SIGRE collection point and the first thing to be aware of is that cardboard boxes and medication containers of all types, whether they still have traces of the medication or are empty, should never be thrown into  public waste bins.

Any medication container (including boxes and leaflets) must be treated with care because it may contain traces of the drug or medicine, so it must be deposited at any of the SIGRE Points located in the more than 22,100 pharmacies spread throughout the country.

Medicine is never reused

Don’t belief the myth that waste medicines collected by SIGRE are ever used again as current legislation does not allow it because it is potentially dangerous to life.

Be aware that syringes, needles or other sharp objects should not be deposited at the SIGRE Point as they are not medications and they could injure the person removing the waste from the bin although, exceptionally, needles that are attached to the medication container and cannot be separated from it (for example, prefilled syringes or insulin pens) can be deposited at the SIGRE Point as long as the needles are properly covered.