Recycling

I just looked this up the other day! The website I found recommended throwing the old pills into a bag with cat litter and then into the dumpster. They advised to not put them in the toilet for the very reason you said and the cat litter is to keep someone from digging them out and using them.

Check out www.earth911.com
I'm not sure about medications and such, but there seems to be a lot of info. on there about how to safely discard things, and/or find a way to recycle certain part of things.

I believe you can take old medicine to a pharmacy or to your doctor's office to dispose of properly.

Good that you are thinking about this! There is a great website that has local information by zipcode: www.earth911.org. Hope it helps!

for bigger appliances and such there is a website called freecycle, just look for the one around you.
people ask for and give away stuff for free.

Town of Gilbert has a hazardous waste drop off center for things like medicine, old TV's old chemicals, paints, etc.. Just look it up on-line at Town of Gilbert. I'm sure other communities do, too. I dropped some stuff off at Town of Gilbert's facility, and it was really easy.

Depends on what city you live in. I know that the city of Mesa has a household hazardous waste collection that they do twice a year (one at the landfill and the other out near University and Adobe). That's more for chemicals though like paint and aerosols etc.

As for appliances most cities have a collection day for those as well, I would check the website for the solid waste collection for the city/town you live in. The www.earth911.org website is a great resource too.

I'm not sure about tv's and vaccuums, but as for med's take them to your local pharmacy and they will dispose them for you.

I was a pharmacy tech for 15 yrs at various pharmacies around Tucson. When folks brought us tablet meds to dispose of, the usual procedure was to add a bit of water to whatever container they were given to us. That container was then thrown into the trash. Liquid meds were opened and dumped into our trash can. Most folks presumed we had a special way of disposal, but there is no magic place to put them.

If you have a membership at Costco they will take old medications and make sure they are disposed of properly. Please don't dump any medications in the toilet. It affects our water supply. The TV and Vacuum I'm not sure how to dispose of it but you may want to look into 1 800 Got Junk.

I would take any prescriptions or other pharmaceuticals back to your drug store and ask the pharmacist what to do with them. If they offer to take them to dispose of for you, ask them what they do with them as well. Broken TVs can be taken to the dump and put in with the computers they have in the recycling area. Not sure what to suggest about the vacuum except maybe donate it to the Beacon Foundation and maybe they can rebuild and sell it for charity. It's frustrating to want to recycle and not have the facilities for such - even worse to find out that a lot of what we do "recycle" gets dumped in the land fill anyway. The best thing to do is begin to practice reduced consumption whenever possible. Every little bit of plastic packaging we can avoid the better our earth will be in the future. Good luck.

Check with the city for disposal of the tv and vac. I recentely heard for medicine you should dissolve it in a bit of water and then mix it in some kitty litter and put it in a ziplock, then toss it