Jan. 24, 2024 – If old bottles of prescription medicines and over-the-counter pain relievers are gathering dust behind your bathroom mirror, you’re not alone. But it’s important to take stock of what medications you have, what you can get rid of, and figure out how to store and discard your pills with care. 

Let’s start with the basics: Despite its name, you shouldn’t keep your pills in the bathroom medicine cabinet. There are two major reasons why, experts say. 

The first is that medicine cabinets are usually in bathrooms. That comes with a lot of humidity and high temperatures. According to the CDC, storing medications in places were temperatures often change and humidity is high has been shown to make medicines degrade more quickly. 

The second reason to move your pills is that often, anyone you share your home with can easily get to your medicine cabinet. If you’re trying to keep medications out of the hands of young children, people struggling with substance use, or teens with mental health issues, even a kitchen cabinet may not be the best place to keep pills. And studiesshow that most household medications aren’t stored properly. 

“It’s kind of like that milk that you get; it’s probably good a little past the expiration date,” said Maryann Amirshahi, MD, a toxicologist, emergency medicine doctor, and co-director of the National Capital Poison Center. 

“There’s nothing magical about the day that it expires. But that being said, you don’t want to let it sit there for much longer than that,” she said.

Whether or not the medication is past its prime by the date on the packaging has a lot to do with how it has been stored. It also depends on what type of situation you find yourself in, said Joe Graedon, a pharmacologist and co-host of “The People’s Pharmacy” national call-in radio show. 

“If you’re in a situation that is not that critical – maybe you need a sleeping aid or an allergy medication – and you’ve got a medicine that is a week, month, or even a couple of months out of date, it probably didn’t go bad,” he said. 

For many medications, simply tossing the bottle in the garbage isn’t the best course of action. The best way to dispose of old prescriptions is to take advantage of take-back programs offered across the country. The FDA has a resource that helps you find local Drug Enforcement Administration-registered take-back locations. Many pharmacies will also take old drugs and dispose of them safely. 

If that doesn’t work for you, Amirshahi has another solution. 

“With most medications, you can actually put them in cat litter or coffee grounds before throwing them away – something gross – so that people won’t be tempted to take them,” she said. “You want to make them completely unpalatable.” 

Whatever you do, don’t flush medications down the toilet. Research has shown that doing this leads to an increased concentration of drugs in the water supply and damages aquatic wildlife.