(Marquette, Michigan) – Northern Michigan residents honored Earth Day by turning in tens of thousands of pills plus narcotics with an estimated street value of half a million dollars during the third annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweep.
The 2007 Pharmaceutical Clean Sweep targeted out-of-date and unwanted medications of all kinds, according to Carl Lindquist, executive director of the Superior Watershed Partnership.
Lindquist estimated that over one ton of pharmaceuticals and personal care products were turned in by the public.
The “controlled substances” turned in have an estimated street value of $500,000 including narcotics in pill and liquid form, clean sweep organizers said.
Several police officers estimated that each one of the narcotics and other controlled drugs had a street value ranging from $5 to $25 per pill.
“We had a great public turnout, a lot of people showed up with old medications,” said Lindquist said. “We are again breaking records for the Great Lakes and maybe the nation.”
Lindquist said the exact number of controlled substances turned in was still being tallied.
About 2,000 people turned in items but the many had also collected pharmaceuticals from other family and friends, organizers said.
The 2007 clean sweep went off without a hitch thanks to the U.P. chapter of the Michigan Pharmacists Association, and numerous law enforcement agencies including the DEA and Michigan Sheriff’s Association, organizers said. Pharmacists and law enforcement officers were present at all collection sites to ensure security and proper collection of the pharmaceuticals, Lindquist said.
The third annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweep was coordinated by the Superior Watershed Partnership and the Cedar Tree Institute, both Marquette-based non-profit environmental groups.
The clean sweep was again sponsored by nine U.P. faith communities with 130,000 members (60 percent of U.P. residents), the Superior Watershed Partnership, the Cedar Tree Institute, and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community.
The project involves the congregations of over 140 churches and temples representing nine faith communities (Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist, Baha’i, Jewish, and Zen Buddhist).
The clean sweep had over 400 volunteers including 150 members of Thrivent Financial and 40 Northern Michigan University (NMU) students.
Financial sponsors again this year include the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and $15,000 from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a not-for-profit financial services membership organization and fraternal benefit society.
Rev. Jon Magnuson, Earth Keeper Initiative founder, said “one of the gifts that the faith community brings to the environmental movement is that the external damage done in the environment is a reflection of what is going on in the human condition, in the human heart – so as we heal and cleanse the Earth, we are also healing the human heart.”
“We are in trouble with the way we live with the Earth, we have lost our balance” but projects like the clean sweeps are one example of humans correcting manmade problems, said Rev. Magnuson, co-organizer of the clean sweeps and the head of Lutheran Campus Ministry at NMU.
Lindquist said the pharmaceuticals will be taken to an EPA-licensed incinerator at Veolia Environmental Services near St. Louis, Missouri.
The EPA is funding the collection of pharmaceuticals and personal care products because trace amounts of chemicals from those substances are turning up in America’s drinking water.
EPA official John Perrecone from Chicago visited several of the collection sites and praised the Superior Watershed Partnership and the Earth Keeper team for its organization and success pulling off the largest geographical pharmaceutical collection in U.S. history.
“From the EPA’s prospective this is an ideal approach for grassroots community members and the faith-based community to work with the federal government, American Indians and others to achieve environmental gain,” said Perrecone, Ecosystem Projects Manager at the Midwestern Region office of EPA located in Chicago.
The 19 Earth Keeper sites collect “the whole gamut” of over-the-counter and prescription medications including a wide range of narcotic pain killers, sleeping pills, syringes/needles, and antibiotics.
The public also turned in a wide range of personal care products like shampoo, lotions and soaps.
Although an environmental project, the pharmaceutical collection had several great side-effects like removing drugs that could be accidently consumed by children thinking the pills were candy, and preventing diversion of controlled substances such as narcotics by people addicted to prescription medications.
The third annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweep was praised by America’s Drug Czar, law enforcement officers and prosecutors.
“Prescription drug abuse is a serious problem across the Nation, increasingly affecting families who have been untouched by illegal drug use,” said U.S. Drug Czar John Walters, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) and a member of the President’s Cabinet
Walters cited the 2007 Pharmaceutical Clean sweep across northern Michigan as an example of “community engagement in properly disposing of pharmaceuticals (that) will help us stop and prevent prescription drug abuse, and the harm it can cause.”
Remote areas like Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are not immune to prescription drug abuse.
About 14 percent of students in Alger and Marquette counties admit using prescription medication to get high, according to a 2006 survey by the Great Lakes Center for Youth Development.
“And in our own community here in the U.P., it’s an under-reported problem and a lot of times prescription drugs that are suitable for abuse can be stolen from people for whom they are prescribed,” said Paul Olson, a licensed social worker who works for the Great Lakes Center for Youth Development in Marquette.
Katherine Geier removed all the narcotics from her home, delivering OxyContin and other medication to the collection site at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Ishpeming.
“My mother had become addicted to prescription pain killers and sleeping pills, so I ended up hiding them from her,” Geier said. “So I had all these narcotics and I did not know what to do with them.”
“I did not want to flush them down the toilet,” Geier said. “So I finally found a proper was to dispose of them.”
Drug addicts and burglars “will break into people’s homes and steal these narcotic drugs for their own personal gain – they will either use it themselves or sell it on the streets,” said Ishpeming Police Officer Robert Sibley, one of dozens of law enforcement officers stationed at the 19 collection sites. “This is a big problem and we are working on it all the time.”
Police were pleased the clean sweep prevented lots of “controlled” drugs from possible diversion to the street.
“This is great,” said Marquette Police officer Brandon Boesl, while transferring counted narcotics to a special holding container during the collection at the Messiah Lutheran Church in Marquette.
“Some of the most abuse things in the area are prescription drugs and a lot of people after they get their prescription refilled don’t use them – and other family members or children can get a hold of them – and this is a great way to get rid of them,” officer Boesl said.
Marquette General Hospital Pharmacist Bob Hodges said “these are controlled drugs and we are inventorying them so that we will have a better record of the drugs that are being collected – it’s required by law.”
After counting pills from a dusty bottle filled with narcotics, Ishpeming pharmacist Steve Lyford said “to dispose of these medicines in a safe way is a real good idea.”
Over 100 people dropped off pharmaceuticals at the First Presbyterian Church in Escanaba, MI. Including over 3,700 (controlled substance) pills.
Some participants held medications “for many years after the death of a relative because they did not know what to do with it,” said Jill Wiese Martin, site manager and a member of the First Presbyterian Church in Escanaba, MI.
“Most people were relieved to be able to bring this material in without any hassles and many were very aware that this material should not be just flushed,” said Wiese Martin, adding many participants were frustrated that left over medicine goes to waste when it is replaced by new treatment.
“We need a systematic way to routinely and safely dispose of unused and unwanted medications,” said Wiese Martin, an environmental scientist. “An organized means for collection and disposal just does not exist.”
The EPA and Lindquist said the clean sweep targeted medicines because trace amounts of pharmaceuticals are turning up in America’s rivers, lakes, and drinking water.
The EPA says most treatment plants are not designed to filter out these medications.
When pills or liquid medicines are poured down the sink or flushed down the toilet they remain diluted in the water supply after treatment and these trace amounts are suspected of causing a range of health problems, according to the EPA.
As leftover and waste pharmaceuticals get flushed down drains, research is showing that they are increasingly being detected in our lakes and rivers at levels that could be causing harm to the environment and ecosystem,” said Elizabeth LaPlante, senior manager for the EPA Great Lakes National Programs Office in Chicago, Ill
“Specifically, reproductive and development problems in aquatic species, hormonal disruption and antibiotic resistance are some concerns associated with pharmaceuticals in our wastewater,” LaPlante said.
“The Earth Keeper Pharmaceutical Collection event, therefore, is an excellent opportunity to prevent the introduction of these chemicals into Lake Superior and other water bodies,” LaPlante said.
Lindquist said that recent national studies have documented that over 80 percent of the rivers sampled “tested positive for a range of pharmaceuticals including antibiotics, birth control hormones, antidepressants, veterinary drugs and other medications.”
Lindquist said some urban centers have even detected “traces of pharmaceuticals in their tap water.”
Pharmaceuticals in some rivers have also been linked to behavioral and sexual mutations in species of fish, amphibians and birds, according to EPA studies.
Pharmaceutical compounds known as endocrine disruptors have even been linked to neurological problems in children and increased incidence of some cancers, Lindquist said.
The Superior Watershed Partnership has on-going programs that including Adopt-Your-Watershed, public environmental education, summer youth programs, land conservation, habitat restoration, energy conservation and numerous opportunities for volunteers to get “hands-on experience” in their communities, national parks, national forests and their local watershed, Lindquist said.
