How many people know where the collection point for expired medicines is?
Reporter investigates the current status of household expired drug recycling
● According to the White Paper on the Recycling of Expired Drugs in Chinese Households, about 78.6% of the households in my country have a small family medicine box, but more than 80% of the families do not have the habit of cleaning the medicine box regularly. tons
● People dispose of expired medicines more casually. Some people still choose to take them if they don't care. Some people throw them into trash cans. Others specially recycle expired medicines and put them on the market.
The damage to personal health and the ecological environment caused by these treatments cannot be ignored
● Currently, the establishment of classified distribution points for expired drugs is only achieved in a small number of prefectures and cities, and most provinces and cities still have the problem of insufficient recycling and distribution points.
Many cities in China have carried out household expired drug recycling activities, but the effect is not satisfactory due to the high cost of recycling and the lack of sustainable guarantees.
● Experts suggest to establish a long-term recovery mechanism for expired drugs, increase the promotion of the recovery of expired drugs, and at the same time promote the reform of drug packaging to reduce the generation of expired drugs from the root cause
□ Zhang Shoukun, a trainee reporter of this newspaper
□ Our reporter Chen Lei
How to deal with expired medicines at home? Throw them directly into the trash can, or recycle them by specialized agencies?
Mr. Lu, a resident of Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, has been plagued by this problem recently.
Not long ago, he was scalded while cooking at home. He remembered that there was a scald ointment in the small medicine box at home, so he used it to smear the wound.
After wiping it, he inadvertently found that the scalding cream had exceeded its shelf life for more than half a year.
Fortunately, he didn't feel sick afterwards.
But this experience also made Mr. Lu pay attention to the disposal and recycling of expired medicines.
In recent years, with the increase of public health awareness, more and more people like Mr. Lu are used to stocking medicines at home.
According to the "White Paper on Recycling of Expired Drugs in Chinese Households", about 78.6% of households in my country have a small family medicine box, but more than 80% of the families do not have the habit of cleaning the medicine box regularly. The country produces about 15,000 expired drugs a year. Ton.
A reporter from the "Rules of Law Daily" found that people deal with expired medicines more casually. Some people still choose to take them if they don't care. Some people throw them into the trash can. Some people specially recycle expired medicines and put them on the market.
The damage to personal health and the ecological environment caused by these treatments cannot be ignored.
Experts interviewed suggested that a long-term recovery mechanism for expired drugs should be established, the promotion of expired drug recycling should be increased, and the reform of drug packaging should be promoted to reduce the generation of expired drugs from the root cause.
Expired medicines are everywhere
Improper handling is dangerous
Lao Zhang, a resident of Fengtai in Beijing, is in his 70s. He suffers from high blood pressure and other chronic diseases. He has to take antihypertensive drugs every day. Therefore, his family bought a lot of drugs for chronic diseases, as well as Banlangen and Jianwei Xiaoshi tablets.
But he usually seldom cleans the small medicine box. At the end of the year, when he cleans it at one time, he will always find that more than 10 kinds of medicines have expired, and some have even expired for more than two years.
The same is true of Lao Zhang's son Zhang Chen's family.
Zhang Chen's family has two children. In addition to the medicines commonly used by adults, children's medicines are also indispensable. Because they have not been cleaned for a long time, there are many expired medicines in the small medicine box.
"Some medicines don't expire for a long time, and sometimes we adults just eat them, but if the medicines for children expire, they will be thrown into the trash directly." Zhang Chen said.
Both Lao Zhang and Zhang Chen were not very clear on how to properly handle these expired medicines.
"'It's a medicine with three parts of poison'. While medicines bring healing effects to people, if they are used in the wrong amount, they may cause damage to the body." said Wang Yue, a professor at the Department of Medical Ethics and Law at the School of Medical Humanities, Peking University. The composition of the drug has changed, not only the efficacy of the drug will be reduced, but also harmful impurities may be decomposed, which may cause allergies or even shock after taking it.
Deng Liqiang, executive director of the China Health Law Society and deputy director of Beijing Huawei Law Firm, said that expired drugs disposed of at will, under the long-term infiltration and diffusion of rainwater and groundwater, will pollute water bodies and soil and affect human health.
"Expiration of drugs will not only cause waste of resources, but once unscrupulous traders recycle such expired drugs and re-circulate them to the market, the adverse consequences can be imagined."
The reporter combed through the public information and found that there are data showing that two-thirds of expired medicines in the rural market currently flow out of various small family medicine boxes.
In the past 5 years, the Xiamen Municipal Medical Insurance Bureau of Fujian Province, together with the public security organs, cracked down on fraudulent insurance fraud cases such as repeated participation in insurance, repeated reimbursement and reselling of drugs across 8 cities, and seized thousands of drugs for the treatment of hypertension, diabetes, hepatitis B and other diseases. The amount amounts to millions of dollars.
Lack of mechanism and insufficient publicity
Resident participation is not high
According to my country's "National Hazardous Waste List" (2021 edition) appendix "Hazardous Waste Exemption Management List", waste medicines generated in household daily life or activities that provide services for daily life are hazardous wastes in domestic waste, and those that are not collected centrally Hazardous waste in household garbage generated in daily life is not managed as hazardous waste.
At present, many market supervision departments have carried out drug recycling work. By setting up recycling points in pharmacies, hospitals, communities, etc., drug recycling is encouraged, and the recovered expired drugs are uniformly registered and collected.
The recovered expired medicines will be harmlessly disposed of by a garbage disposal company with medical waste disposal qualifications.
However, the reporter recently randomly interviewed nearly 100 residents in Beijing, Tianjin, Anhui and other places and found that the drug recycling work was not satisfactory.
Some people have never heard that expired medicines can be recycled, and some people do not know where the medicine recycling point is. More people choose to throw expired medicines and household waste into the trash can for centralized disposal.
On the official website of the Tianjin Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Commission, the reporter found a copy of the latest information on the designated pharmacies for the recycling of expired medicines for households in Tianjin, which was released on September 9, 2020.
According to the above information, the reporter came to a pharmacy located in Jingjiang Road, Hedong District, Tianjin.
At the door of the store, the reporter did not see any information related to drug recycling.
After consultation, we learned that expired medicines can be recycled here, but the recycling box is placed in the innermost.
The reporter noticed that the expired drug recycling box was empty, and the notebooks used to register and provide expired drug information and personnel were also brand new.
The staff explained that people usually find out that the medicines are expired when they pack up their old things at the end of the year. At that time, more people came to the pharmacy. "We will organize special activities to promote, and usually no one comes."
According to the above-mentioned list of designated pharmacies for the recycling of expired drugs, the reporter went to a pharmacy located in Chenyang Road, Hedong District, Tianjin, but was told that there was no recycling point for expired drugs.
During the survey, many residents reported that sometimes they wanted to go to designated institutions for drug recycling, but they searched for "drug recycling" through the map app, but found "waste recycling"; Too far away from the place of residence, "it's too troublesome to take a few boxes of expired medicines and go to a place several kilometers away to recycle."
In addition, some companies have also participated in the recycling of expired drugs, but most of them do not have regular channels for recycling expired drugs, and only do some public welfare and periodic recycling activities. Some companies are also difficult to continue due to high processing costs.
A number of experts interviewed by reporters analyzed that there are several reasons for the low level of residents' participation in drug recycling. First, the publicity is not enough. The public does not know that expired drugs can be recycled. It is the lack of a systematic and perfect recovery mechanism, high recovery cost and low sustainability.
"The Drug Administration Law clearly prohibits expired medicines from entering the market, but there are no detailed regulations on how to recycle and dispose of expired medicines. Since 2019, Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Sichuan and other places have successively implemented garbage classification policies, but currently they have set up classification and delivery points for expired medicines. It is only implemented in a small number of cities, and most provinces and cities still have the problem of insufficient recycling and distribution points. Many cities in China have carried out household expired drug recycling activities, but due to high recycling costs and lack of sustainable guarantees, the effect is not effective. Ideal." Deng Liqiang said.
In addition, Deng Liqiang pointed out that the main responsible agency or department for the recycling work is not clear in many places, and the disposal cost of recycled expired drugs is high, which is also the reason for the difficulty in recycling expired drugs.
Promote the reform of pharmaceutical packaging
Reduce waste at source
In order to promote the recycling of expired medicines at home, the government and enterprises are exploring and taking action.
The Ministry of Ecology and Environment issued the "Code of Conduct for Citizens' Ecological Environment (Trial)" to guide the public to dispose of waste drugs and other hazardous wastes according to the signs, and to promote the opening of hazardous waste treatment and domestic waste treatment facilities to the public.
The Weihai City Market Supervision Bureau of Shandong Province revised the "Administrative Measures for the Recycling and Destruction of Home Expired Drugs in Weihai City", established and improved a long-term mechanism for the harmless disposal of home expired drugs, implemented dynamic management of designated recycling stores, and regularly conducted normative inspections. Stores that do not meet the designated recycling standards will cancel their family's qualification for recycling expired medicines to ensure the safe and proper disposal of expired medicines.
Alibaba Health has innovated the drug traceability technology of "Reassurance on the Code", which allows users to identify expired drugs by scanning the Chinese drug electronic supervision code on the medicine box.
From March 13th to March 31st every year, residents of Hefei, Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Dongguan, Zhengzhou and other cities can “call the recycling brother with one click” to collect expired medicines for free.
Deng Liqiang believes that, first of all, we must let the common people develop the habit of actively recycling expired drugs, and then establish supporting measures for disposal. This is the development direction of promoting the recycling of expired drugs in the future.
"At present, many places across the country are actively setting up recovery points for expired drugs and expired drugs. Some pilot cities can be selected from these cities that have been piloted, and good experiences can be summarized and promoted across the country. Only by establishing a unified and long-term standardized recovery mechanism Only by regulating the behavior of ordinary people in dealing with expired medicines at home can we solve the problem of recalling expired medicines, which not only prevents expired medicines from households from re-entering the market, but also prevents environmental pollution caused by random discarding of expired medicines.” Deng Liqiang said.
In the absence of a complete special recovery mechanism, how should expired drugs be properly handled?
Industry experts introduced the following practices: medicines such as tablets, pills, and capsules should be wrapped in paper and then thrown into the trash; For ointment medicines, the ointment should be squeezed out of the container, collected in a package, and then discarded; spray medicines should be placed outdoors, in a place with good ventilation, to avoid contact with open flames Do not open it without authorization, and put it into the trash can together with its complete outer packaging.
In Wang Yue's view, in order to reduce the generation of expired drugs from the root cause, the reform of drug packaging should be put on the agenda.
"It is proposed to amend the relevant laws to stipulate that medicines are sold in whole packages with restrictions. For example, in Japan, medicines are packed in a small paper bag; in the United States or some European countries, patients will receive a small plastic bottle, which only contains Small doses of medicine for a few days. Through the reform of medicine packaging, it can not only change the problem of excessive packaging in medical institutions and pharmaceutical business enterprises, but also avoid the generation of excessive expired medicines from the upstream.” Wang Yue said.