It’s easy to protect your family, pets, and the environment from waste medicines and sharps. Take your unwanted household medicines and used sharps to any convenient collection site around our county.

As of September 1, 2008, it is illegal to discard used sharps in the garbage or recycling, and used sharps must be transported in an approved sharps container.

Household Medicines and Sharps Collection
— the answer to a growing problem.

Bring in waste medicines and sharps to any convenient drop-off site around Santa Cruz County

What are “Sharps”?
Sharps include: hypodermic needles, pen needles, intravenous needles, lancets, or anything else used to deliver medicine through the skin.

Be Safe
Dispose of old medicines and sharps promptly. Why? Old medicines can be taken accidentally and sharps are dangerous.

Be Informed
Medicines and sharps should not be thrown in the trash or flushed down the toilet. Medicines flushed down the toilet cannot be detoxified by sewage treatment plants – they go right into the bay. Syringes or pen needles in the garbage or recycling can prick sanitary workers, and these workers might get sick.

What to do?
Take waste medicines and sharps to a collection site. Many pharmacies in the county offer this collection service. Bring unused or expired medicines in their vials, and used sharps in a protective red sharps container.

What’s an approved sharps container?
Approved sharps containers are rigid, leak-proof, puncture resistant boxes of various sizes made of hard red plastic, with a lid that can be securely sealed to keep contents from falling out, and clearly marked with the bio-hazard symbol. New sharps containers are available at a discounted price at each site that accepts sharps.

What Medicines Can I Bring?
Items accepted with medicines include: prescription medicines, over-the-counter medicines, medicine samples, pet medicines, vitamins, medicated ointments and lotions, inhalers, and liquid medication in glass or leakproof containers.