Disposal practices and awareness of medicine waste management among general population of Delhi-National Capital Region, India

Not all the medicines manufactured every year are consumed and adversely vast amount of medicines go unused or expired. Unsafe handling and disposal practices of unused and expired medicines results in environmental hazards which is a source of concern. A cross-sectional survey was performed in Delhi-NCR, India among 500 respondents that reflected their awareness, behaviors and disposal practices for unused and expired drugs. Despite the fact that the majority of respondents were optimistic about disposing of unused and expired drugs, nearly more than half of the survey population were unsure of proper disposal procedures. A total of 268 (53.6%) were aware of the problem of medicine waste; about 236 (47.2%) read the directions for disposing of medications, and 121 (24.2%) respondents were aware of drug take back system. The most common practice of disposal of unused and expired medicines among people surveyed were dumping in household garbage. With respect to the level of public awareness regarding the legal disposal management and destruction of the medicine wastes, the results revealed an urgent need of public information creating awareness using ecofriendly methods of disposing unwanted medicines among community.