Clear out expired and unused leftover medicines on a regular schedule, and drop them with their packaging into the hazardous waste bin; don't keep them at home

Cost

Free. Go through the medicine cabinet once a year, about a dozen minutes.

What you get

U.S. emergency department surveillance data estimate that from 2004 to 2013, children under 6 who swallowed medicines by mistake while unsupervised made about 640,000 (64万) emergency visits (estimate 640161). In 2013 alone there were about 59,000 (5.9万) visits (59092). From 2010 to 2013, the most common cause was oral prescription tablets, at 45.9%. Among prescription drugs, the most common were opioid painkillers (13.8%) and benzodiazepine sleeping and sedative drugs (12.7%). In 2017, 5 poison control centers in the U.S. asked parents who had called for help. Where a child swallowed a prescription drug by mistake, in 30.7% it was a grandparent's medicine. For more than half (51.5%) of the prescription drugs, an adult had already taken them out of the original packaging before the child got them. China's National Hazardous Waste List (2025 edition) (《国家危险废物名录（2025 年版）》) lists discarded medicines and their packaging produced in everyday household life as hazardous waste within household waste. Shanghai's sorting guidelines place discarded medicines under hazardous waste, stating this includes expired medicines, capsules, tablets and inner drug packaging, and that “discarded medicines should be dropped together with their packaging.” Shanghai also provides that for expired and discarded household medicines collected by drugstores, each district's market regulation department sets up a temporary transfer point. The U.S. FDA says the best way to dispose of expired and unused medicines is to hand them in at a take-back site.

Notes

Each place's waste-sorting list is not exactly the same; go by the list posted at your residential compound's trash room. Shanghai puts the dregs of Chinese herbal medicine in wet waste (湿垃圾), not hazardous waste. Keep the medicines you keep in their original boxes, don't pour them into a pill organizer or other bottles, and store them out of children's reach; see §13.20 (accidental swallowing). Don't take leftover antibiotics at home on your own either; see §34.7 (antibiotics). Where there is no take-back site, the U.S. tells people to mix medicines with coffee grounds or cat litter, seal them in a bag and put them in the regular trash, and a few strong painkillers may be flushed down the toilet. This is the U.S. practice; in China, follow your local sorting rules. Graded B because the U.S. figures are only registrations, and no study has calculated how many accidental swallowings clearing out the medicine cabinet prevents. The benefit is rated “small”: the figures at hand are emergency visits, not deaths, and the effect of the clean-out itself can't be calculated.

Evidence grade

B : Supported by research but without a precise number, or based on small or single studies.

Sources

1. Lovegrove MC, Weidle NJ, Budnitz DS (2015). Trends in Emergency Department Visits for Unsupervised Pediatric Medication Exposures, 2004-2013. Pediatrics, 136(4):e821-e829. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2015-2092
2. Agarwal M, Lovegrove MC, Geller RJ, et al. (2020). Circumstances Involved in Unsupervised Solid Dose Medication Exposures among Young Children. Journal of Pediatrics, 219:188-195.e6. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2019.12.027
3. 生态环境部等 (2024). 国家危险废物名录（2025年版），附录《危险废物豁免管理清单》第 1 项. https://www.gov.cn/gongbao/2025/issue_11906/202503/content_7011162.html
4. 上海市绿化和市容管理局 (2024). 上海市生活垃圾分类投放指引（2024版）（沪绿容〔2024〕278号）. https://www.shanghai.gov.cn/gwk/search/content/40b9feaa-53db-472f-8a6b-2c3cf0465def
5. 上海市绿化和市容管理局、上海市环境保护局、上海市食品药品监督管理局 (2018). 关于规范生活垃圾分类有害垃圾全程管理的通知. https://www.shanghai.gov.cn/nw12344/20200813/0001-12344_57440.html
6. U.S. Food and Drug Administration (2025). Where and How to Dispose of Unused Medicines. https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/where-and-how-dispose-unused-medicines

Translated from the Chinese original. Original book, section 34, tip 10. This section is about health and medicines. It is general information, not a substitute for a doctor’s diagnosis or prescription. Content may be out of date and rules differ by place. When you actually deal with an agency, a doctor or a court, follow what local officials, doctors and lawyers tell you. Disclaimer