Safeway stores roll out new drug disposal kiosks available at 99% of Colorado locations
A new initiative giving people a safer way to dispose of their old or unwanted drugs is already seeing success. Safeway says people are already using its drug disposal kiosks, which are available at 99% of Colorado locations all year round during pharmacy hours.
It's a nationwide rollout for all Safeway and Albertsons stores that's been in process since fall.
Customers can find self-serve kiosks near the pharmacy where they can open a drawer and place any medication they don't want inside.
"Maybe they switched drugs, maybe it's from a passed loved one, maybe they had some medication and they didn't finish it all," said Nikki Price, Director of Pharmacy Operations at Safeway.
There's no cost to customers for using the self-serve bins, and any kind of medication can be left in them.
"You can put liquid medications in here you can put OTCs. So, even if it's like generic Claritin D and it's expired you can come put that in here," Price said.
From there, Safeway disposes of the medications safely.
"We actually send them back to a facility that we contract with and they destroy them," Price said.
The hope is to prevent accidental poisonings and drug abuse. The National Safety Council notes over 98,000 people died from preventable drug overdoses in 2021, with a majority of those being opioids.
"We just want to make sure that what's in a patient's home is a medication that they're taking so again there's no mix up there's no side effects that could cause some tragic events," Price said.
