Laugh. Learn. Love cats.
Pierre: Newton must have left this chicken leg here. Even with his drool on it, it’s a lot of fun.
Pierre: You have to be fast to catch the chicken leg. Watch out, Newton, it’s mine, now.
Pierre: The chicken leg is slippery. It must be all of Newton’s drool on it.
Pierre: GOTCHA!
Pierre: Whew, that was exhausting. It almost outran me!
This week, the head peep is headed to the BlogPaws pet blogging and social media and the Cat Writers Association conference. Yes, she is attending two conferences at the same time.
There’s a lot of packing to be done when she will be attending awards dinners for two organizations!
Pierre: This is an unauthorized suitcase.
Newton: Move your stripes, Pierre. I have to help pack now.
Newton: Don’t worry, I’m going to make sure she packs everything she needs, including me.
Our friends who follow us on Facebook may have seen that Pierre was supervising some kind of a project to create gifts from Ashton’s Chicken Emporium.
Ashton gave them her approval and they are ready to go now.
Newton: I want to go, too. Start pulling! I heard that it’s a long way to South Carolina.
Are you sure, Newton? There will be lots of other dogs and even some cats there.
Newton: Dogs? Maybe I’ll just take care of watchcat duties at home instead.
Newton: What’s wrong with the sofa cover? It looks like the humans didn’t put it on straight and it has a lump under it. Good help is so hard to find.
Newton: Maybe if I step on this lump, I can smooth it out.
Pierre: Do you MIND?
Newton: Whoa! Where’d you come from?
Pierre: From a very cozy sleep.
Newton: What just happened?
Newton: I was just trying to tidy up.
During spring cleaning, I think I discovered that I am a veterinary prescription drug hoarder.
Pierre was prescribed an appetite stimulant and then started eating before they were all used. Ashton was prescribed liquid meds and I have to get pills instead. And so on. Pretty soon, we end up with all kinds of leftover medications.
The next logical question is how to get rid of them. Flushing unused medications down the toilet or drain is a bad idea. Water treatment plants are really meant for treating human waste, not for eliminating pharmaceuticals. That means medications flushed down the toilet are going into the environment, where they can sicken or kill wildlife. Drugs thrown into the trash end up in landfills, and those can seep into the environment, too.
The US Geological Survey has already found levels of drugs like antibiotics, hormones, and contraceptives in 80% of the rivers and streams tested in part of a nationwide study.Other studies have shown that fish and other wildlife can be adversely affected by pharmaceuticals, even after the medications are expired.
This Saturday, April 29th, there are drug take-back events across the US to allow you to safely dispose of your medications without endangering the water supply. You can locate an event near you on the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s web site US Drug Enforcement Administration’s web site.
If you need to dispose of medications other times of year, you can:
If there aren’t any drug take-back events in your area, you can purchase special postage-paid packages from your local pharmacy that send medications back to a medical waste company. Some medications are ineligible for this program, so read the fine print before you purchase.
You can use most of these same resources for disposing of human medications, too, except your veterinarian is not likely to be able to help with unused human medications.
Let’s keep things that don’t belong in the trash out of it, including medications.
Reference and further reading
US Environmental Protection Agency, Contaminants of Concern Including Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care ProductsContaminants of Concern Including Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products
US Geological Survey, Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and Other Organic Wastewater Contaminants in U.S. Streams
US Department of Justice, National Take-Back Initiative
